American Poems, Longfellow: Whittier Bryant; Holmes; Lowell Emerson

by Horace Elisha Scudder

Excerpt from American Poems, Longfellow: Whittier Bryant; Holmes; Lowell Emerson
The general use which has followed the first publication of American Poems confirms the editor in his belief that such a book has a real place in our educational system, and he is gratified by the wide and cordial recognition which it has received. The few criticisms which have been offered seem mainly to have sprung from a hasty consideration of its intention. It does not profess to be a representative volume of American poetry, nor, in a comprehensive way, of the poets whose works are included in it, but, because the poems are of themselves worthy and the group is American in origin and tone, the book has a significance which justifies its title. The brief sketches of the authors contained in it were necessarily limited to the main facts of their literary life, but the editor, in reviewing his work under the more favorable conditions of a completed book and lapse of time, perceives with renewed and stronger feeling how pure and admirable is the spirit in which these American poets have wrought, how high an ideal has been before them, and with what grace and beauty their lives have reinforced their poems!
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472 pages, Paperback

Published August 24, 2018

About the author

Horace Elisha Scudder (1838-1902) was a prolific American man of letters and editor. He graduated from Williams College in 1858, taught school in New York City, and subsequently, removing to Boston, he devoted himself to literary work. He is now best known for his children's books and the editorship he held of The Atlantic Monthly. He published the Bodley Books (1875-87) and was also an essayist, and produced large quantities of journalism that was printed anonymously. He was a correspondent of Hans Christian Andersen, and biographer of James Russell Lowell. He also edited The Riverside Magazine. Scudder also prepared, with Mrs. Taylor, the Life and Letters of Bayard Taylor (1884) and was series editor for the extensive American Commonwealths Series for Houghton Mifflin.