the famous Dante Club For details, including who attended, see J. Chesley Mathews, “Mr. Longfellow’s Dante Club,” 76th Annual Report of the Dante Society (1958), 23–35. For a critique of his ability as a Dante translator, see Gilbert F. Cunningham, The Divine Comedy in English, A Critical Bibliography, 1782–1900 (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1965), 65–71.
the poet’s fabled cellar Most proper Bostonians drank very old madeira; Longfellow was unusual in his expert knowledge of European wine, his cellar containing not only burgundies, hock, and champagne but a variety of Italian wines (a taste acquired in 1828), purchased through the Italian consul. See his Cellarbook, LP.
When Longfellow read verse Howells, “The White Mr. Longfellow,” Literary Friends and Acquaintance, 155–56.
a visit with the Queen A courtier said the queen told him afterwards, “The American poet Longfellow has just been here. I noticed an unusual interest among the attendants and servants. . . . When he took leave, they concealed themselves in places from which they could get a good look at him as he passed. I have since inquired among them, and am surprised and pleased to find that many of his poems are familiar to them.” Kennedy, Longfellow, 183.
He breakfasted with Mr. Gladstone Samuel Longfellow, Life III, 113.
several memorable portraits On Healy’s “Arch of Titus,” see The Lure of Italy, 244–46; on Lewis’s bust of Longfellow, 242–43. In Rome Longfellow also met Franz Liszt, who was in 1874 to write a cantata in which, in the first part, he did a repeated setting of the word “Excelsior!” (Wagner borrowed the theme for the opening of Parsifal); in the second, he set “The Bells of Strasburg Cathedral” from The Golden Legend.
Tennyson at Farringford The two poets treated each other with wary respect; Tennyson did not particularly like Longfellow’s work but greeted him cordially. Longfellow sold better than the Poet Laureate in Britain because in the absence of international copyright, British publishers could pirate American books and sell them more cheaply, in the absence of any royalties. (U.S. publishers returned the favor.) Longfellow allowed several of his later works to be published first in London, to guarantee that he would own the copyright.
the formidable Julia Margaret Cameron Far more in fashion today than her neighbor Tennyson, Cameron presided over a circle immortalized in her greatniece Virginia Woolf’s 1923 comedy Freshwater. See Colin Ford, “Geniuses, Poets, and Painters: The World of Julia Margaret Cameron,” in Cox and Ford, Julia Margaret Cameron: The Complete Photographs, 40–79.
Morituri Salutamus
President Joshua Chamberlain’s invitation He passed up the invitation to stay with the Chamberlains, however: The general had moved the house in which Henry and Mary had lived in 1831–32 to Maine Street, elevating it, with a new first floor underneath. The house, today a Chamberlain museum, retains the Longfellow’s front door and front rooms.
he could stand at the pulpit Longfellow’s influence as a medieval revivalist has been underestimated; he could take satisfaction in being in Richard Upjohn’s Carpenter Gothic church, not far from the Upjohn’s Romanesque college chapel, a chateauesque alumni hall, and Gervase Wheeler’s much-copied Gothic Revival “cottage-villa.”
Five more volumes In addition to his own work, he had begun in 1876 his Poems of Places, which eventually ran to thirty-one volumes, covering all of Europe and parts of Asia, translated by many hands, including his own.
the massacre at Little Big Horn In Evan S. Connell’s Son of the Morning Star (a 1984 biography of Gen. George Custer), Longfellow is criticized for rushing the poem to the market and getting many details wrong. He in fact depended on such newspaper accounts as were available; the poem is notably pro-Sioux for its time and place.
Henry James’s observation William Wetmore Story and His Friends, 311. James allows Mr. Verver to quote from “The Psalm of Life” in The Golden Bowl (1904).
steady flow of distinguished visitors Not all of these visitors were famous; Longfellow often greeted respectable-looking strangers at the door himself. For a particularly charming account of such a visit, see Bok, The Americanization of Edward Bok, 41–47. The poet was delighted to find someone to read a Dutch translation of his work to him.
perhaps one serious flutter of the heart Hilen suggests several romantic interests on the part of Longfellow and younger women in the 1870s, but the evidence is slim.
Priscilla Mullins’s contribution to the antiques trade See, for example, Celia Betsky, “Inside the Past: The Interior and the Colonial Revival in American Art and Literature, 1860–1914” in Axelrod, The Colonial Revival in America, 241–77, and Condon and Shuckhart, Inside SPNEA: Priscilla, 5–21.
the deaths of close friends During Hawthorne’s final illness, his son Julian read to him from Evangeline. Nathaniel Hawthorne and His Wife, II, 335.
Darwinism Perhaps because of his close friendship to Agassiz, the nation’s leading anti-Darwinian scientist, Longfellow did not express a public opinion on a matter much discussed in advanced Boston-Cambridge circles, like the Radical Club (which the poet occasionally attended). In public he remained a conventional Unitarian, whose verse and drama were filled with biblical themes, but in his later years he grew more agnostic. Howells, 171, and R. H. Dana III Memoir, 14–16.
Annie Fields’s literary salon Mrs. Fields is now given as much credit as he is for the success of her husband’s publishing house, Ticknor & Fields, at the Old Corner Book Store in Boston. See, for example, Gollin, Annie Adams Fields.
Uncle Tom Appleton Fanny’s beloved brother, Tom, was a noted wit, art collector, and yachtsman who is given credit for having said, “When good Americans die, they go to Paris.” Having rejected a business career in America, he spent as much time as possible abroad, a kind of proto-Jamesian figure.
literally nursed him Richard Henry Dana III wrote: “Mr. Longfellow had to act as valet and trained nurse in one,” patiently helping his old friend day and night. Dana Family Papers, Box 44, Massachusetts Historical Society.
his photo album Laidlaw (ed.), Charles Appleton Longfellow: Twenty Months in Japan, 1871–1873.
Ernest proved more conventional He disinherited his nephews H.W.L. (“Harry”) Dana and Allston Dana “for their socialistic and pacifistic views.” Rosamond Wild Dana, “Privileged Radicals: The Rebellious Times of Six Dana Siblings in Cambridge and New York in the Early Twentieth Century.” M.A. thesis, City University of New York, 1991, 25.
Perhaps their Brahminism gave them the confidence to go against the grain. Richard Henry Dana IV became a conscientious objector in World War I; Harry, an enthusiastic supporter of the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1930s, was arrested (though acquitted) on a morals charge in 1935 and became a pioneer gay liberationist as well as the family’s historian; Edward Dana was a socialist and civil rights activist; Delia Dana, a socialist and feminist; only Frances Appleton Dana de Rahm led a conventional social life, becoming a very close friend of Franklin Roosevelt, though she committed suicide in 1933.
I cannot recall the name of our friend Kennedy, 278.
Aftermath
a stroll through Westminster Abbey The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. in Washington Irving: History, Tales & Sketches (Library of America, 1983), 896.
reputation among the British reading public Evidence of his fame is spread across Europe: I am grateful to Artine Artinian for telling me of the Longfellow bust in Menton, France, and to Brunhild Fischer for sending me photos of the Longfellow fountain in Geisenheim, Germany, with its quotation from The Golden Legend.
the Valhalla of the English-speaking race Higginson, Longfellow, 252.
In Washington in 1909 Appropriately enough, the Mayflower Hotel is only a few steps away!
at the Music Hall in Woonsocket The program is in the Gulotta Collection, Houghton Library.
the Afro-British composer For an analysis, see Tortolano, “Hiawatha,” Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, 39–71.
Antonin Dvorak There is an extensive literature on the composer’s American inf
luences, including African American music. On the Hiawatha connection, see, for example, Michael Beckerman, “The Dance of Pau-Puk-Keewis, the Song of Chiabos, and the Story of Iagoo: Reflections on Dvorak’s ‘New World’ Scherzo,” in Tibbetts, Dvorak in America, 1892–1895, 210–27.
George Saintsbury “Longfellow’s Poems,” Prefaces and Essays, 340.
As Carol Christ has suggested Christ, 157.
his mother back in Idaho Humphrey Carpenter, A Serious Character: The Life of Ezra Pound (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1988), 5–6, 22.
Longfellow’s poetic practice He pops up in unexpected places. In a 1977 television interview with William F. Buckley, Jr., Jorge Luis Borges said: “I don’t know why people look down on Longfellow. Maybe he was too much of a literary man, no? He was the same kind of poet as Ezra Pound. I mean he took mostly from books and not from his own experience. But his translation of the Divine Comedy is a very fine translation. In fact, I read it in English before I read it in Italian.” Transcript, PBS, Feb. 18, 1977. Copy at Maine Historical Society. On Longfellow’s lingering influence in Latin America, see Kirsten Silva Gruesz, “El Gran Poeta: Longfellow and a Psalm of Exile,” American Literary History 10:3 (Fall 1998), 395–427.
Who, except wretched schoolchildren Lewisohn, Expression in America, 65–66.
the homophobic witch hunt See Werth, The Scarlet Professor, passim.
Howard Nemerov “Introduction,” Longfellow, 7–27.
“greener” than we had thought Buell, on Longfellow’s “Aftermath,” in The Environmental Imagination, 109–10.
the poet Dana Gioia The Columbia History of American Poetry, 64–96.
more critical attention in Britain Jay Parini, “Longfellow and American Optimism,” Times Literary Supplement, May 25, 2001, 5–6.
as Gulotta explained Basbanes, Among the Gently Mad, 194–97.
As Gioia notes The Columbia History of American Poetry, 67.
“Acadian” eventually became “Cajun” See Brasseux, Acadian to Cajun: Transformation of a People, 1803–1877, passim.
the Saturday Club’s Parker House The present hotel, which opened in 1927, replaced the original 1855 building in which the club met.
For further details of Longfellow’s life and career, visit the Longfellow pages, www.mainememory.net, on the Maine Historical Society’s Maine Memory Network.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Manuscript Sources
Houghton Library, Harvard University
Longfellow National Historic Site, Cambridge, Mass.
Maine Historical Society, Portland, Maine
Special Collections, Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine
Pejepscot Historical Society, Brunswick, Maine
Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston
Boston Athenaeum
Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, Boston
Bostonian Society
Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston
First American Publication of Longfellow’s Work in Book Form
(All were published in Boston, except as noted.)
Catalogue of the Library of the Peucinian Society, Bowdoin College (Hallowell,
Maine: Goodale, Glazier & Co. Printers, 1823)
Manuel de Proverbes Dramatiques (Portland, Maine: Samuel Colman, 1830)
Elements of French Grammar, by M. Lhomand (Portland, Maine: Samuel Colman, 1830)
Novelas Espanolas. El Serrano de las Alpujarras; y el Cuadro Misterioso (Portland, Maine: Samuel Colman, 1830)
Le Ministre de Wakefield (Gray and Bowden, 1831)
Syllabus de la Grammaire Italienne (Gray and Bowden, 1832)
Saggi de’ Novellieri Italiani d’Ogni Secolo (Gray and Bowden, 1832)
Outre-Mer, A Pilgrimage Beyond the Sea (Hilliard, Gray, & Co.: No. I, 1833; No. II, 1834)
Hyperion, A Romance (New York: Samuel Colman, 1839)
Voices of the Night (Cambridge, Mass.: John Owen, 1839)
Poems on Slavery (Cambridge, Mass.: John Owen, 1842)
Ballads and Other Poems (Cambridge, Mass.: John Owen, 1842)
The Spanish Student: A Play, in Three Acts (Cambridge, Mass.: John Owen, 1843)
The Poets and Poetry of Europe (Philadelphia: Carey and Hart, 1845)
Poems (Philadelphia: Carey and Hart, 1845)
The Belfrey of Bruges and Other Poems (Cambridge, Mass.: John Owen, 1846)
The Estray: A Collection of Poems (William D. Ticknor & Co., 1847)
Evangeline, A Tale of Acadie (William D. Ticknor & Co., 1847)
Kavanagh, A Tale (Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, 1849)
The Seaside and the Fireside (Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, 1850)
The Golden Legend (Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, 1851)
The Song of Hiawatha (Ticknor and Fields, 1855)
Prose Works, 2 vols. (Ticknor and Fields, 1857)
The Courtship of Miles Standish, and Other Poems (Ticknor and Fields, 1858)
Tales of a Wayside Inn (Ticknor and Fields, 1863)
Flower-de-Luce (Ticknor and Fields, 1867)
The Divine Comedy of Dante, 3 vols. (Ticknor and Fields, 1867)
The New England Tragedies: I. John Endicott, II. Giles Corey of the Salem Farms (Ticknor and Fields, 1868)
The Divine Tragedy (James R. Osgood and Company, 1871)
Christus, 3 vols.: The Divine Tragedy, The Golden Legend, and The New England Tragedies (James R. Osgood and Company, 1871)
Three Books of Song (James R. Osgood and Company, 1872)
Aftermath (James R. Osgood and Company, 1873)
The Hanging of the Crane (James R. Osgood and Company, 1874)
The Masque of Pandora and Other Poems (James R. Osgood and Company, 1875)
Poems of Places, 32 vols. (James R. Osgood and Company, 1876–79)
Keramós and Other Poems (Houghton, Osgood & Company, 1878)
Ultima Thule (Houghton, Mifflin & Company, 1880)
In the Harbor (Houghton, Mifflin & Company, 1882)
Michael Angelo (Houghton, Mifflin & Company, 1884)
“Origin and Growth of the Languages of Southern Europe and of Their Literature: An Inaugural Address . . .” September 2, 1830. (Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine, 1907)
Longfellow’s Boyhood Poems (Saratoga Springs, N.Y.: R.W. Pettengill, 1925)
For first British publication, private printings, and first appearance of individual poems in gift book and other formats, see Jacob Blanck, Bibliography of American Literature. Vol. V (Oak Knoll Books).
Selected Editions of Longfellow’s Works
The Complete Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 7 vols. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1866.
The Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The Riverside Edition. 11 vols. Horace E. Scudder, ed. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Company, 1886.
The Complete Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Standard Library Edition. 14 vols. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Company, 1891. [Includes the 3-volume Life by Samuel Longfellow.]
The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The Cambridge Edition. Horace E. Scudder, ed. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Company, 1894.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Selected Poems. Lawrence Buell, ed. New York: Penguin Books, 1988.
Poems and Other Writings. J. D. McClatchy, ed. New York: The Library of America, 2000.
Books and Articles
Aaron, Daniel. “The Legacy of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.” Maine Historical Society Quarterly 27:4 (1987), 42–66.
———. The Unwritten War: American Writers and the Civil War. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1973.
[Abbott, Edward]. Mrs. James Greenleaf, A Commemorative Discourse. Cambridge, MA: The Powell Press, 1903.
Abrams, M. H. The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition. New York: Oxford University Press, 1953.
Abse, Joan. John Ruskin: The Passionate Moralist. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1981.
Acadian Culture in Maine. Washington, DC: National Park
Service, 1994.
Ackerman, Alan L., Jr. The Portable Theater: American Literature & the Nineteenth-Century Stage. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1999.
Ahlstrom, Sydney E. A Religious History of the American People. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972.
Allen, Gay Wilson. American Prosody. New York: American Book Company, 1935.
Allibone, S. Austin. A Critical Dictionary of English Literature and British and American Authors. 2 vols. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1870.
Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Revised edition. New York: Verso, 1991.
Anderson, Patricia McGraw. The Architecture of Bowdoin College. Brunswick, ME: Bowdoin College Museum of Art, 1988.
Appleton, Nathan. Introduction of the Power Loom and Origin of Lowell. Lowell, MA: Proprietors of the Locks and Canals on Merrimack River, 1858.
[Appleton, Thomas Gold]. Faded Leaves. Boston: Printed for the Author, Roberts Brothers, 1872.
Arms, George. The Fields Were Green: A New View of Bryant, Whittier, Holmes, Lowell, and Longfellow, with a Selection of Their Poems. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1953.
Armstrong, Isobel. Victorian Poetry: Poetry, Poetics and Politics. London: Routledge, 1993.
Arnold, Matthew. Essays in Criticism, 2nd. ser. London: Macmillan, 1894.
Arvin, Newton. Longfellow: His Life and Work. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1962.
Austin, George Lowell. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. His Life, His Works, His Friendships. Boston: Lee and Shepard, Publishers, 1883.
Austin, James C. Fields of “The Atlantic Monthly,” Letters to an Editor 1861–1870. San Marino, CA: The Huntington Library, 1953.
Axelrod, Alan, ed. The Colonial Revival in America. New York: W. W. Norton, 1985.
Baltzell, E. Digby. Puritan Boston and Quaker Philadelphia. Boston: Beacon Press, 1979.
Banks, Ronald F. Maine Becomes a State: The Movement to Separate Maine from Massachusetts, 1785–1820. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1970.
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