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Biography
Thomas Bangs Thorpe (1815–1878) was an American antebellum humorist, painter, illustrator, and author best known for the short story "The Big Bear of Arkansas", which was first published in the periodical Spirit of the Times in 1841. Thorpe's 1854 anti-slavery novel The Master's House focuses on a young man from North Carolina who was educated at a college in New England, then moved to Louisiana with his slaves and established a plantation there. The novel is important for its depiction of slave-trading and its mild, but persuasive, critique of slavery.
He attended Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut from 1834 until 1837, and while at college gave evidence of artistic and literary talent. Thorpe's struggles with illness, however, prevented him from graduating.