SOURCE: Hopkins, Robert. “Simon Suggs: A Burlesque Campaign Biography.” American Quarterly 15, no. 3 (fall 1963): 459-63.

In the following essay, Hopkins maintains that Johnson Jones Hooper's Some Adventures of Simon Suggs should be read as a burlesque of a campaign biography.

While it is generally recognized that Johnson Hooper's Some Adventures of Simon Suggs (1845) is written in the form of a campaign biography, no critic has yet recognized that the work is a burlesque of campaign biographies. This elementary distinction, however, is of some importance; for as in most great works of satire, the structure of Simon Suggs becomes itself a functional part of the humor. If one reads the story merely in terms of the Confidence-Man theme, there is a lengthy section (Chapters 7-9) that seems digressive and overly extended. This section becomes functional only when it is recognized as a direct burlesque of political biographies of Andrew Jackson...