Joseph Dennie was one of the first Americans to be considered a professional writer. Although his principal fame rests on his essays and literary criticism, he also earned journalistic renown as the editor of one of a class of rural newspapers which in the early years of the republic were often as well known and influential as their larger cousins in major port cities. Between 1796 and 1799 Dennie edited the Farmer's Weekly Museum in Walpole, New Hampshire, and made it a vehicle for some of his best writings--especially his Lay Preacher essays, which rank among the best essays ever produced in America. He also used the newspaper to disseminate his strong Federalist views on political life in the new nation. In 1800 he was hired as literary editor for the Federalist Gazette of the United States in Philadelphia, and the next year he founded and edited the weekly Port Folio...