1.
1842 in art
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Events from the year 1842 in art. David Roberts begins publication of Sketches in the Holy Land, richard Dadd becomes mentally ill during a tour of the Middle East and is thought to be suffering from sunstroke. Construction work resumes on Cologne Cathedral, after a gap of three centuries. William Fox Talbot receives the Rumford Medal of the Royal Society, george R. Lewis records the famous carvings at Kilpeck church, Herefordshire. Dordrechts Museum established in the Netherlands
2.
William Cullen Bryant
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William Cullen Bryant was an American romantic poet, journalist, and long-time editor of the New York Evening Post. Bryant was born on November 3,1794, in a log cabin near Cummington, Massachusetts and he was the second son of Peter Bryant, a doctor and later a state legislator, and Sarah Snell. The genealogies of both of his parents back to passengers on the Mayflower, his mothers to John Alden. He was also a nephew of Charity Bryant, a Vermont seamstress who is the subject of Rachel Hope Clevess 2014 book Charity and Sylvia, Bryant and his family moved to a new home when he was two years old. The William Cullen Bryant Homestead, his home, is now a museum. After just one year at Williams College, he hoped to transfer to Yale and his father counseled a legal career as his best available choice, and the disappointed poet began to study law in Worthington and Bridgewater in Massachusetts. He was admitted to the bar in 1815 and began practicing law in nearby Plainfield, on one of these walks, in December 1815, he noticed a single bird flying on the horizon, the sight moved him enough to write To a Waterfowl. Bryant developed an interest in early in life. Under his fathers tutelage, he emulated Alexander Pope and other Neo-Classic British poets, the Embargo, a savage attack on President Thomas Jefferson published in 1808, reflected Dr. Bryants Federalist political views. The first edition sold out — partly because of publicity attached to the poets young age. A second, expanded edition included Bryants translation of classical verse, during his collegiate studies and his reading for the law, he wrote little poetry, but encounters with the Graveyard Poets and then Wordsworth regenerated his passion for the witchery of song. Thanatopsis is Bryants most famous poem, which Bryant may have been working on as early as 1811, Bryant, he submitted them along with his own work. The editor of the Review, Edward Tyrrel Channing, read the poem to his assistant, Richard Henry Dana, who immediately exclaimed, That was never written on this side of the water. Someone at the North American joined two of the sons discrete fragments, gave the result the Greek-derived title Thanatopsis, mistakenly attributed it to the father, after clarification of the authorship, the sons poems began appearing with some regularity in the. To a Waterfowl, published in 1821 was the most popular, on January 11,1821, Bryant, still striving to build a legal career, married Frances Fairchild. As it would in all collections he subsequently issued, The Ages led the volume, also entitled Poems, for that book, he added sets of lines at the beginning and end of Thanatopsis that changed the poem. His poetry has been described as being of a thoughtful, meditative character, with the encouragement of a distinguished and well-connected literary family, the Sedgwicks, he quickly gained a foothold in New York Citys vibrant cultural life. His first employment, in 1825, was as editor of the New-York Review, from Assistant Editor he rose to Editor-in-Chief and co-owner of the newspaper that had been founded by Alexander Hamilton
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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet and educator whose works include Paul Reveres Ride, The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline. He was also the first American to translate Dante Alighieris Divine Comedy, Longfellow was born in Portland, Maine, which was then a part of Massachusetts. After spending time in Europe he became a professor at Bowdoin and, later and his first major poetry collections were Voices of the Night and Ballads and Other Poems. Longfellow retired from teaching in 1854, to focus on his writing, living the remainder of his life in Cambridge, Massachusetts and his first wife Mary Potter died in 1835, after a miscarriage. His second wife Frances Appleton died in 1861, after sustaining burns when her dress caught fire, after her death, Longfellow had difficulty writing poetry for a time and focused on translating works from foreign languages. Longfellow wrote many lyric poems known for their musicality and often presenting stories of mythology and he became the most popular American poet of his day and also had success overseas. He has been criticized, however, for imitating European styles and his father was a lawyer, and his maternal grandfather, Peleg Wadsworth, was a general in the American Revolutionary War and a Member of Congress. He was named after his mothers brother Henry Wadsworth, a Navy lieutenant who had died three years earlier at the Battle of Tripoli, Longfellow was the second of eight children, his siblings were Stephen, Elizabeth, Anne, Alexander, Mary, Ellen and Samuel. Longfellow was of entirely English ancestry, all of which had been in New England since the early 1600s, Longfellow attended a dame school at the age of three and by age six was enrolled at the private Portland Academy. In his years there he earned a reputation as being very studious and his mother encouraged his enthusiasm for reading and learning, introducing him to Robinson Crusoe and Don Quixote. He published his first poem, a patriotic and historical four-stanza poem called The Battle of Lovells Pond and he stayed at the Portland Academy until the age of fourteen. He spent much of his summers as a child at his grandfather Pelegs farm in the western Maine town of Hiram, in the fall of 1822, the 15-year-old Longfellow enrolled at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, along with his brother Stephen. His grandfather was a founder of the college and his father was a trustee, there Longfellow met Nathaniel Hawthorne, who would later become his lifelong friend. He boarded with a clergyman for a time before rooming in 1823 on the floor of what is now known as Winthrop Hall. He joined the Peucinian Society, a group of students with Federalist leanings, in his senior year, Longfellow wrote to his father about his aspirations, I will not disguise it in the least. The fact is, I most eagerly aspire after future eminence in literature, my whole soul burns most ardently after it, and every earthly thought centres in it. I am almost confident in believing, that if I can ever rise in the world it must be by the exercise of my talents in the field of literature. He pursued his goals by submitting poetry and prose to various newspapers and magazines
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English poetry
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This article focuses on poetry written in English from the United Kingdom, England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The article does not include poetry from other countries where the English language is spoken, the earliest surviving English poetry, written in Anglo-Saxon, the direct predecessor of modern English, may have been composed as early as the 7th century. This is generally taken as marking the beginning of Anglo-Saxon poetry and it is possible to identify certain key moments, however. The Dream of the Rood was written before circa AD700, by and large, however, Anglo-Saxon poetry is categorised by the manuscripts in which it survives, rather than its date of composition. While the poetry that has survived is limited in volume, it is wide in breadth, beowulf is the only heroic epic to have survived in its entirety, but fragments of others such as Waldere and the Finnesburg Fragment show that it was not unique in its time. Other genres include much religious verse, from works to biblical paraphrase, elegies such as The Wanderer, The Seafarer, and The Ruin, and numerous proverbs, riddles. With one notable exception, Anglo-Saxon poetry depends on alliterative verse for its structure, with the Norman conquest of England, beginning in 1111 the Anglo-Saxon language rapidly diminished as a written literary language. The new aristocracy spoke predominantly Norman, and this became the language of courts, parliament. While Anglo-Norman or Latin was preferred for high culture, English literature by no means died out, other transitional works were preserved as popular entertainment, including a variety of romances and lyrics. With time, the English language regained prestige, and in 1362 it replaced French and Latin in Parliament, the reputation of Chaucers successors in the 15th century has suffered in comparison with him, though Lydgate and Skelton are widely studied. A group of Scottish writers arose who were believed to be influenced by Chaucer. The rise of Scottish poetry began with the writing of The Kingis Quair by James I of Scotland, the main poets of this Scottish group were Robert Henryson, William Dunbar and Gavin Douglas. The Renaissance was slow in coming to England, with the generally accepted start date being around 1509 and it is also generally accepted that the English Renaissance extended until the Restoration in 1660. However, a number of factors had prepared the way for the introduction of the new learning long before this start date. A number of medieval poets had, as noted, shown an interest in the ideas of Aristotle. The introduction of printing by Caxton in 1474 provided the means for the more rapid dissemination of new or recently rediscovered writers and thinkers. Caxton also printed the works of Chaucer and Gower and these books helped establish the idea of a poetic tradition that was linked to its European counterparts. In addition, the writings of English humanists like Thomas More and Thomas Elyot helped bring the ideas, the establishment of the Church of England in 1535 accelerated the process of questioning the Catholic world-view that had previously dominated intellectual and artistic life
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Robert Browning
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Robert Browning was an English poet and playwright whose mastery of the dramatic monologue made him one of the foremost Victorian poets. His poems are known for their irony, characterization, dark humour, social commentary, historical settings, Brownings early career began promisingly, but was not a success. His reputation took more than a decade to recover, during which time he moved away from the Shelleyan forms of his early period, in 1846 Browning married the older poet Elizabeth Barrett, who at the time was considerably better known than himself. So started one of historys most famous literary marriages and they went to live in Italy, a country he called my university, and which features frequently in his work. By the time of her death in 1861, he had published the crucial collection Men and Women, the collection Dramatis Personae and the book-length epic poem The Ring and the Book followed, and made him a leading British poet. He continued to write prolifically, but his reputation rests largely on the poetry he wrote in this middle period. Unusually for a poet, societies for the study of his work were founded while he was still alive, such Browning Societies remained common in Britain and the United States until the early 20th century. Brownings admirers have tended to temper their praise with reservations about the length and difficulty of his most ambitious poems, particularly The Ring and the Book. Nevertheless, they have included such eminent writers as Henry James, Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, G. K. Chesterton, Ezra Pound, Jorge Luis Borges, among living writers, Stephen Kings The Dark Tower series and A. S. Byatts Possession refer directly to Brownings work, today Brownings critically most esteemed poems include the monologues Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came, Fra Lippo Lippi, Andrea Del Sarto, and My Last Duchess. Robert Browning was born in Walworth in the parish of Camberwell, Surrey and he was baptized on 14 June 1812, at Locks Fields Independent Chapel, York Street, Walworth, the only son of Sarah Anna and Robert Browning. His father was a clerk for the Bank of England. Brownings paternal grandfather was an owner in Saint Kitts, West Indies. Brownings father had sent to the West Indies to work on a sugar plantation. Brownings mother was the daughter of a German shipowner who had settled in Dundee in Scotland, the evidence, however, is inconclusive either way. Roberts father, a collector, amassed a library of around 6,000 books. As such, Robert was raised in a household of significant literary resources and his mother, to whom he was very close, was a devout nonconformist and a talented musician. His younger sister, Sarianna, also gifted, became her brothers companion in his later years and his father encouraged his childrens interest in literature and the arts
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Thomas Babington Macaulay
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Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay, PC was a British historian and Whig politician. He wrote extensively as an essayist and reviewer, his books on British history have been hailed as literary masterpieces, Macaulay held political office as the Secretary at War between 1839 and 1841, and the Paymaster-General between 1846 and 1848. He played a role in introducing English and western concepts to education in India. He supported the replacement of Persian by English as the language, the use of English as the medium of instruction in all schools. In his view, Macaulay divided the world into civilised nations and barbarism and he was wedded to the Idea of Progress, especially in terms of the liberal freedoms. He opposed radicalism while idealising historic British culture and traditions, Macaulay was the son of Zachary Macaulay, a Scottish Highlander, who became a colonial governor and abolitionist, and Selina Mills of Bristol, a former pupil of Hannah More. They named their first child after his uncle Thomas Babington, a Leicestershire landowner and politician, Thomas Macaulay was born in Leicestershire, England, where he was noted as a child prodigy. As a toddler, gazing out of the window from his cot at the chimneys of a local factory and he was educated at a private school in Hertfordshire and at Trinity College, Cambridge. Whilst at Cambridge he wrote poetry and won several prizes. In 1825 he published a prominent essay on Milton in the Edinburgh Review and he studied law and in 1826 he was called to the bar but showed more interest in a political than a legal career. Macaulay, who never married and had no children, was rumoured to have fallen in love with Maria Kinnaird. But in fact, Macaulays strongest emotional ties were to his youngest sisters, Margaret who died while he was in India, as Hannah grew older, he formed the same close attachment to Hannahs daughter Margaret, whom he called Baba. Macaulay retained a passionate interest in literature throughout his life. He likely had an eidetic memory, while in India, he read every ancient Greek and Roman work that was available to him. In his letters, he describes reading the Aeneid whilst on vacation in Malvern in 1851 and he also taught himself German, Dutch, and Spanish, and remained fluent in French. In 1830 the Marquess of Lansdowne invited Macaulay to become Member of Parliament for the borough of Calne. His maiden speech was in favour of abolishing the civil disabilities of the Jews in the UK, Macaulay made his name with a series of speeches in favour of parliamentary reform. After the Great Reform Act of 1832 was passed, he became MP for Leeds, in the Reform, Calnes representation was reduced from two to one, Leeds had never been represented before, but now had two members
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Alfred, Lord Tennyson
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Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, FRS was Poet Laureate of Great Britain and Ireland during much of Queen Victorias reign and remains one of the most popular British poets. Tennyson excelled at penning short lyrics, such as Break, Break, Break, The Charge of the Light Brigade, Tears, Idle Tears, Tennyson also wrote some notable blank verse including Idylls of the King, Ulysses, and Tithonus. During his career, Tennyson attempted drama, but his plays enjoyed little success and he is the ninth most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. Tennyson was born in Somersby, Lincolnshire, England and he was born into a middle-class line of Tennysons, but also had a noble and royal ancestry. His father, George Clayton Tennyson, was rector of Somersby, also rector of Benniworth and Bag Enderby, and vicar of Grimsby. Rev. George Clayton Tennyson raised a family and was a man of superior abilities and varied attainments, who tried his hand with fair success in architecture, painting, music. He was comfortably well off for a clergyman and his shrewd money management enabled the family to spend summers at Mablethorpe. Alfred Tennysons mother, Elizabeth Fytche, was the daughter of Stephen Fytche, vicar of St. James Church, Louth and rector of Withcall, Tennysons father carefully attended to the education and training of his children. Tennyson and two of his brothers were writing poetry in their teens and a collection of poems by all three was published locally when Alfred was only 17. One of those brothers, Charles Tennyson Turner, later married Louisa Sellwood, the sister of Alfreds future wife. Another of Tennysons brothers, Edward Tennyson, was institutionalised at a private asylum, Tennyson was a student of Louth Grammar School for four years and then attended Scaitcliffe School, Englefield Green and King Edward VI Grammar School, Louth. He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1827, where he joined a society called the Cambridge Apostles. A portrait of Tennyson by George Frederic Watts is in Trinitys collection, at Cambridge, Tennyson met Arthur Henry Hallam and William Henry Brookfield, who became his closest friends. His first publication was a collection of his rhymes and those of his elder brother Charles entitled Poems by Two Brothers. In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellors Gold Medal at Cambridge for one of his first pieces, reportedly, it was thought to be no slight honour for a young man of twenty to win the chancellors gold medal. He published his first solo collection of poems, Poems Chiefly Lyrical in 1830, claribel and Mariana, which later took their place among Tennysons most celebrated poems, were included in this volume. Although decried by critics as overly sentimental, his verse soon proved popular and brought Tennyson to the attention of well-known writers of the day. In the spring of 1831, Tennysons father died, requiring him to leave Cambridge before taking his degree and he returned to the rectory, where he was permitted to live for another six years and shared responsibility for his widowed mother and the family
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Richard Henry Dana Sr.
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Richard Henry Dana Sr. was an American poet, critic and lawyer. His son, Richard Henry Dana Jr. also became a lawyer, Richard Henry Dana was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts on November 15,1787, the son of Federalist judge Francis Dana. He graduated from Harvard College and became a lawyer and he married Ruth Charlotte Smith and they had four children including Richard Henry Dana Jr. Despite having graduated there, Dana accused Harvard of smothering genius. Between 1817 and 1827, he was the first American to write major critiques of Romanticism, in a review of the poetry of Washington Allston, he noted his belief that poetry was the highest form of art, though it should be simple and must avoid didacticism. Dana also criticized the Transcendentalism movement and he wrote, Emerson & the other Spiritualists, or Supernaturalists, or whatever they are called, or may be pleased to call themselves. Dana was a member of the Anthology Club, in 1817 he and others in the club founded the North American Review. As an outlet for his criticism, though he lost editorial control of it on account of his opposition to standard conventions, though some of his criticisms were controversial when first published, by 1850 his opinions were conventional. As he wrote at the time, Much that was held to be presumptuous novelty. As a writer of fiction, Dana was a practitioner of Gothic literature, particularly with his novel Paul Felton. The novel has also called a pioneering work of psychological realism alongside works by William Gilmore Simms. Dana had difficulty supporting his family through his writing, which earned him only $400 over 30 years, in 1849, he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Honorary Academician. He lived on Chestnut Street in Bostons Beacon Hill neighborhood, ca. 1840s-1870s, Dana died on February 2,1879, and was buried in the family plot at the Old Burying Ground next to the First Parish in Cambridge. An oration, delivered before the Washington benevolent society at Cambridge, printed by Hilliard and Metcalf,1814. V.1 Paul Felton WorldCat Richard Henry Dana Sr. at Lawyers and Poetry
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William Wordsworth
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William Wordsworth was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication Lyrical Ballads. Wordsworths magnum opus is generally considered to be The Prelude, a poem of his early years that he revised and expanded a number of times. It was posthumously titled and published, before which it was known as the poem to Coleridge. Wordsworth was Britains Poet Laureate from 1843 until his death from pleurisy on 23 April 1850 and his sister, the poet and diarist Dorothy Wordsworth, to whom he was close all his life, was born the following year, and the two were baptised together. Wordsworths father was a representative of James Lowther, 1st Earl of Lonsdale and, through his connections. He was frequently away from home on business, so the young William and his siblings had little involvement with him and remained distant from him until his death in 1783. However, he did encourage William in his reading, and in particular set him to commit to memory large portions of verse, including works by Milton, Shakespeare, William was also allowed to use his fathers library. William also spent time at his mothers house in Penrith, Cumberland, where he was exposed to the moors, but did not get along with his grandparents or his uncle. His hostile interactions with them distressed him to the point of contemplating suicide, Wordsworth was taught both the Bible and the Spectator, but little else. It was at the school in Penrith that he met the Hutchinsons, including Mary, after the death of his mother, in 1778, Wordsworths father sent him to Hawkshead Grammar School in Lancashire and sent Dorothy to live with relatives in Yorkshire. She and William did not meet again for nine years. Wordsworth made his debut as a writer in 1787 when he published a sonnet in The European Magazine and that same year he began attending St Johns College, Cambridge. He received his BA degree in 1791 and he returned to Hawkshead for the first two summers of his time at Cambridge, and often spent later holidays on walking tours, visiting places famous for the beauty of their landscape. In 1790 he went on a tour of Europe, during which he toured the Alps extensively, and visited nearby areas of France, Switzerland. In November 1791, Wordsworth visited Revolutionary France and became enchanted with the Republican movement and he fell in love with a French woman, Annette Vallon, who in 1792 gave birth to their daughter Caroline. Financial problems and Britains tense relations with France forced him to return to England alone the following year. The circumstances of his return and his subsequent behaviour raised doubts as to his wish to marry Annette. With the Peace of Amiens again allowing travel to France, in 1802 Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy visited Annette, the purpose of the visit was to prepare Annette for the fact of his forthcoming marriage to Mary Hutchinson
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Benjamin Haydon
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Benjamin Robert Haydon was an English painter who specialised in grand historical pictures, although he also painted a few contemporary subjects and portraits. His commercial success was damaged by his often tactless dealings with patrons and he was troubled by financial problems throughout his life, which led to several periods of imprisonment for debt. He gave lectures on art, and kept extensive diaries that were published after his death, at an early age he showed an aptitude for study, which was carefully fostered by his mother. At the age of six he was placed in Plymouth Grammar School, and at twelve in Plympton Grammar School, reading Albinus inspired him with a love for anatomy, and from childhood he wanted to become a painter. Full of energy and hope, he left home, on 14 May 1804, for London and he was so enthusiastic that Henry Fuseli asked when he found time to eat. In 1807, at the age of 21, Haydon exhibited, for the first time, the painting he entered, The Repose in Egypt, was bought by Thomas Hope a year later for the Egyptian Room at his townhouse in Duchess Street. This was a start for Haydon, who shortly afterwards received a commission from Lord Mulgrave. That same year, he took on his first pupil, Charles Lock Eastlake, Haydon was fascinated by the Elgin Marbles, and believed that they provided evidence that ancient Greek artists had studied anatomy. The income was not enough to pay off all his debts, much of what he saw there disappointed him, he described Raphaels Transfiguration, a painting he had particularly wanted to see, as small & insignificant. On returning to England, he produced Christs Entry into Jerusalem, while painting another large work, the Resurrection of Lazarus, his financial problems increased, and he was arrested but not imprisoned, the sheriff-officer taking his word for his appearance. In October,1821, he increased his commitments when he married Mary Hyman, in 1823 Haydon spent two months imprisoned for debt in the Kings Bench Prison, where he received consoling letters from leading men of the day. While there, he drew up a petition to Parliament in favour of the appointment of a committee to inquire into the state of encouragement of historical painting, which was presented by Lord Brougham. During 1825, following an agreement for his support with his lawyer, Thomas Kearsey, Haydon turned, rather unwillingly, to portrait painting. His works in the genre were, however, attacked in a review in Theodore Hooks weekly newspaper John Bull. Haydon later blamed the article for his loss of clientele, following a second period of incarceration at the Kings Bench Prison in 1827, he painted the Mock Election inspired by an incident he had witnessed there. The picture was bought by King George IV for £500, encouraged by this success, he painted a companion picture, Chairing the Member, returning to the prison to make drawings of some of the inmates. A third painting of contemporary life showed the audience at a Punch and his hopes that the king would buy this work were disappointed, a setback he blamed on the actions of the Keeper of the Kings Pictures, William Seguier. Curtius Leaping into the Gulf, and Uriel and Satan, as a supporter of parliamentary reform, he had the idea of painting a grand canvas of a meeting on Newhall Hill, addressed by Thomas Attwood, leader of the Birmingham Political Union
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The Poets and Poetry of America
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The Poets and Poetry of America was a popular anthology of American poetry collected by American literary critic and editor Rufus Wilmot Griswold. It was first published in 1842 and went into several editions throughout the 19th century, Rufus Griswold had begun work as a critic working for the New York Tribune and Philadelphias Daily Standard and earned his reputation as a vindictive and savage literary critic. He was also a proponent of American poetry and he claimed to have read every American poem published before 1850—an estimated 500 volumes. Publisher Evert Augustus Duyckinck noted that the thought seems to have entered and his anthology was part of his ongoing efforts to promote distinctly American poetry. Philadelphia publishers Carey & Hart wrote to Griswold in New York on April 18,1842, the anthology was 476 pages and collected poems from over 80 authors, including 17 by Lydia Sigourney, three by Edgar Allan Poe, and 45 by Charles Fenno Hoffman. It gave prominent space to some of the most popular poets of the day, including Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the collection was dedicated to Washington Allston. The book proved popular enough that it went through three editions within only six months, a minor poet from Virginia named Daniel Bryan wrote of his disbelief at the rapidity with which the book went into new editions. Is there not some of the trickery of trade in this. —What was the am of the 1st edition—and may not the 2nd ed. have been printed at the time the 1st was. After Griswolds death, Richard Henry Stoddard revised the book and issued several new editions later in the 19th century, the Poets and Poetry of America was the most comprehensive of its kind up to that period. After its release, it was called the most valuable publication of the season in the April 23,1842, critic Lewis Gaylord Clark considered it important to become incorporated into the permanent undying literature of our age and nation. Some critics, however, did not agree with Griswolds selections, the Albany, New York-based Poets Magazine criticized the undue prominence granted to lesser poetasters, including Edgar Poe. Charles Fenno Hoffman, for example, was a friend of Griswold and, modern scholars have dismissed the anthology as a graveyard of poets because many of the writers collected are now virtually unknown. Literary historian Fred Lewis Pattee called the book a collection of poetic trash, in his day, The Poets and Poetry of America propelled Griswold to a national spotlight in the 1840s and 1850s. Griswolds American Poetry by Edgar A
