Among the long-forgotten short-story writers of the later-nineteenth century is Henry Cuyler Bunner, the editor of Puck: The Comic Weekly. Writing five years after Bunner's death, W. P. Trent called Bunner "a humorist of a refined and most attractive type" ("A Retrospect of American Humor," Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, November 1901). He was a novelist, essayist, parodist, and writer of light verse, some of it quite sentimental. To celebrate New York City and its environs, the land of his Dutch ancestors, he wrote essays filled with loving details of his city's neighborhoods and byways, landmarks and polyglot population--including "Jersey and Mulberry" ( Scribner's Magazine, May 1893), "Tiemann's to Tubby Hook" (Scribner's Magazine, August 1893), and "The Bowery and Bohemia" (Scribner's Magazine, April 1894)--all collected in Jersey Street and Jersey Lane (1896)--as well as sketches in The Suburban Sage. Stray Notes and Comments on His Simple Life (1896).

Henry Cuyler Bunner was born in...