REID, JOHN S.: ?-?
John S. Reid is one of those characters who appear and disappear, making considerable impression by their presence but failing to elicit enough interest during their lives to make it worthwhile for any contemporary to record biographical facts.
He is thought to have been born in Ireland and he was living in Connersville, Ind., in 1845 when his narrative poem Gulzar, Or The Rose Bower, was published in Indianapolis .
The breadth of Reid's education must have been singular in its day. He is said to have translated from the Persian, and the inspiration for the poem mentioned above was believed at the time to have come from Persian literature. It is more reasonable, however, to credit the inspiration to Tom Moore's "Lalla Rookh." No matter what the source of its inspiration, the book must have sold rather widely in its time because D. S. A., writing in theCINCINNATI GAZETTE for Dec. 7, 1876, reported that Judge Reid disowned authorship of the poem after lawyers had quoted from it, to his annoyance; and he was believed to have bought up and burned all available copies of the edition. If he hoped to eliminate all traces of the poem, he was unsuccessful, for copies occasionally come to light to this day.
Judge Reid died at Indianapolis .
Information from Parker and Heiney–Poets and Poetry of Indiana, and D. S. A. in the CINCINNATI GAZETTE, Dec. 7, 1876.
- Gulzar, or the Rose Bower. A Tale of Persia.
Indianapolis, 1845.
