James Russell Lowell was an American Romantic poet, critic, editor, and diplomat. He is associated with the fireside poets, a group of New England writers who were among the first American poets that rivaled the popularity of British poets. These writers usually used conventional forms and meters in their poetry, making them suitable for families entertaining at their fireside.
James Russell Lowell, c. 1855
Lowell's birthplace and longtime home at Elmwood in Cambridge, Massachusetts
James Russell Lowell in his later years
A memorial tablet to Lowell at Westminster Abbey bears the inscription: "This tablet and the windows above were placed here in memory of James Russell Lowell, United States Minister at the Court of St James's from 1880 to 1885, by his English Friends"
The fireside poets – also known as the schoolroom or household poets – were a group of 19th-century American poets associated with New England. These poets were very popular among readers and critics both in the United States and overseas. Their domestic themes and messages of morality presented in conventional poetic forms deeply shaped their era until their decline in popularity at the beginning of the 20th century.
1913 image featuring portraits representing four of the fireside poets: Longfellow, Holmes, Lowell, and Whittier
The addition of Sidney Lanier, Walt Whitman, and Edgar Allan Poe to the frontispiece of Edmund Clarence Stedman's An American Anthology in 1900 indicated the beginning of a canonical shift away from the fireside poets.
Bryant
Holmes
