John Rose Greene Hassard

John Rose Greene Hassard, usually John R. G. Hassard, sometimes Jno. R. G. Hassard, (September 4, 1836 – April 18, 1888) was an American literary and music critic and newspaper editor.

Life and career Hassard was born in New York City, in a house on Houston Street in Manhattan, His family background was French Huguenot.

Hassard was at the same time the assistant editor of the American Cyclopedia from 1857 to 1863, which brought him to the attention of the literary editor of the New York Tribune, George Ripley, who hired Hassard to fill in for him temporarily while he was in Europe. Hassard was briefly the first editor of Catholic World, but left that position for Chicago, where he edited Charles A. Dana's newspaper, the Chicago Republican. After its closure in 1867, he returned permanently to the New York Tribune, where he spent the remainder of his career.

Hassard succeeded Ripley as literary editor of the Tribune, in which capacity he wrote many book reviews, In that position, he wrote a short history of newspaper printing presses. In his history of the newspaper, Harry William Baehr characterized him as " lank-built man with sandy hair and side whiskers, [who] possessed real charm of style and breadth of culture".

As music critic of the Tribune, Hassan was a Wagnerite; he wrote dispatches from the Wagner festival at Bayreuth, which were republished as a book on the first performance of The Ring.

Beside the biography of Archbishop Hughes, Hassard wrote a life of Pope Pius IX, as well as a History of the United States for use in Catholic schools. His 1881 book A Pickwickian Pilgrimage is based on his letters to the newspaper from England, in which he followed as faithfully as possible the places of Charles Dickens' The Pickwick Papers.

Death

Hassard died at his home on East 18th Street

Hassard was eulogized as being a "gentleman and a scholar" and an "unselfish, gentle, pure spirit" whose work was full of "gentleness, dignity and sweetness," but who could be aroused by "racial bigotry and prejudice."