Simon Suggs: More Than Satire

In his essay “Simon Suggs: A Burlesque Campaign Biography,” Robert Hopkins argues that Johnson Jones Hooper’s novel Adventures of Captain Simon Suggs deserves recognition as a burlesque of campaign biographies. He presents multiple examples from the novel which support his claim, but also hints at the novel’s ability to fit into many other genres and sub-genres. In paralleling the actions of Andrew Jackson to those of Simon Suggs, and finding inconsistencies in the novel's genre as a picaresque narrative, this essay discusses Hopkins’s essay and the argument for Simon Suggs as a burlesque campaign biography.