READ, OPIE (PERCIVAL)

born Dec. 22, 1852, Nashville, Tenn., U.S. died Nov. 2, 1939, Chicago, Ill. American journalist, humorist, novelist, and lecturer. Read specialized in the homespun humour of life in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Arkansas; Southern colonels, blacks, and drunken printers are frequently found in his writing. Inspired by Benjamin Franklin's autobiography, Read became a printer, reporter, and editor, ultimately editing the Little Rock, Ark., Gazette (187881) and the Arkansas Traveler (1882), a weekly humour and literary journal, which he moved to Chicago in 1887. His books included Len Gansett (1888), a tale of the South; Jucklins (1895), which sold more than 1,000,000 copies; My Young Masters (1896), about the American Civil War; and many others. His autobiography, I Remember, was published in 1930.