United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018Shippey, Herbert2002-07-18Encyclopedia article about William Tappan Thompson. During the middle of the nineteenth century, William Tappan Thompson gained national popularity as a writer of humorous stories. He was best known for creating the fictional character Major Joseph Jones, a down-to-earth Georgia planter who wrote dialect letters about his courtship, rural life, and travels. These letters, originally appearing in periodicals that Thompson edited, were published in Major Jones's Courtship and Major Jones's Sketches of Travel. Thompson was one of a group of nineteenth-century southern writers whose humorous and realistic tales about the backwoods produced a literature that was distinctively American.text/htmlengForms part of the New Georgia Encyclopedia.http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/Forms part of the New Georgia Encyclopedia.Authors, American--Georgia--SavannahNewspaper editors--Georgia--SavannahEditors--Georgia--SavannahHumorists, American--Georgia--SavannahWilliam Tappan Thompson (1812-1882)Text