Quotes:Mayo, William Starbuck

Zirkoff, Boris

Mayo, William Starbuck, American physician and author, b. at Ogdensburg, N. Y., April 15, 1811; d. in New York, Nov. 22, 1895. Interested from his early years in the study of medicine, he attended the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York and graduated in 1832. Ill health forced him to travel and his tour of Spain and the Barbary States left upon him an indelible impression. Though he resumed his medical practice, it was his fiction writing that brought him prominence. The success of his first novel or tale, *Kaloolah, or Journeyings to the Djebel Kumri (New York: G. B. Putnam; London: D. Bogue, 1849), was astonishing, even to the author. This work purports to be an autobiography of Jonathan Romer edited by Mayo; it went through nine editions, the latest one in 1900. It is 658 a rollicking tale of Yankee prowess and self-reliance on the high seas and in Africa. Only slightly less popular was his novel The Berber (1850, 1873, 1883). Mayo was a man of independent observation, penetration of character, and broad interests.

Source: Boris de Zirkoff, «H. P. Blavatsky Collected Writings», vol. 4, pp. 657-658