Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, James Russell Lowell, Bayard Taylor A Book for Young Americans

A biography of Bayard Taylor would not be complete without some account of his friendships. He was always on the best of terms with all living beings, and this subtle attraction...

Just before Irving's return to the United States in 1832, he prepared for publication some sketches which he had made three or four years before while living for a few months in...

In December, 1844, Lowell felt that his income from his literary work, though very small and precarious, was sufficient to justify him in marrying, and accordingly he was united...

There was a touching and very warm affection between Longfellow and Lowell. Mrs. Lowell says of it, "I have never seen such a beautiful friendship between men of such distinct p...

Irving's most famous work is undoubtedly the "Sketch Book"; and of the thirty-two stories and essays in this volume, all Americans love best "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "R...

"The Village Record" (to the proprietor of which Bayard was apprenticed) was printed upon an old-fashioned hand press, and it was the business of the apprentices to set the type...

In the course of time the "Biglow Papers" were published in book form. Not only was Lowell's name not yet connected publicly with the Yankee humor, but the poems were provided w...

Poe always maintained that music and poetry are very near of kin, and in nearly all his greatest poems he seems to write in such a way as to produce the impression of music. As...

As assistant editor of the _Southern Literary Messenger_, Poe achieved great literary success. In this paper he began those spirited criticisms of the writers of the day, which...

It had been Bayard Taylor's boyhood ambition to become a great poet; but it seemed as if fate meant him for a great traveler. He was sorry that this was so: yet he was fond of t...

Lowell always had a presentiment that he should never practice law. He was always dreaming of becoming independent in some other way. "Above all things," he declares, "should I...

Young James was sent first to a dame school, as a private school for very small children kept by a lady in her own house was called in those days. But when he was eight or nine...

We have seen how persistently Poe clung to his poetry. Three times he published the little volume of his verses, revising, enlarging, and strengthening. In those days there was...

While Poe was in Baltimore, after he had begun to earn something by his pen, he went to live with his aunt, Mrs. Clemm. She was very poor, and whatever Poe earned went toward th...

Some people have thought that Irving's long residence abroad indicated that he did not care so much as he should for his native land. But the truth is, the years after his retur...

It was not as a poet, however, that Bayard Taylor was to win his first fame. At the age of nineteen, when he had but half completed his four years' term of apprenticeship, he ma...

Soon after he entered college, young Lowell made the acquaintance of a senior, W.H. Shackford, to whom many of his published letters of college life are addressed. Another intim...

Lowell's next attempt in the satirical and humorous line was a long poem written somewhat after the style of the old Latin fable writers, and hence called "A Fable for Critics."...

At the very first school which Bayard Taylor attended there was a little Quaker girl who would whisper with a blush to her teacher, "May I sit beside Bayard?" Her name was Mary...

Edgar was a beautiful child, with dark eyes, curly dark hair, and lively manners. At six he could read, draw, and dance. After dessert, sometimes they would put him up on the ol...

"The Raven" was published in New York just two years before Mrs. Poe died; it instantly made its author famous, although it brought him little or no money. It is said that he wa...

Bayard Taylor was born in the country village of Kennett Square, Chester County, Pennsylvania, Jan. 11, 1825, "the year when the first locomotive successfully performed its tria...

We have seen how in youth Bayard Taylor conceived the ambition to be known as one of his country's great poets. He saw his books of travel sell by the hundred thousand; but whil...

"Knickerbocker's History of New York" was undertaken by Irving and his brother Peter as a parody on a book that had lately appeared, entitled "A Picture of New York." The two yo...

It seems strange that the success of the "History of New York" did not make Irving a professional man of letters at once. The profits on the first edition were three thousand do...

Poe had the hardest time of his life when he was at New York, living in that little cottage at Fordham, where his poor wife died. He was always borrowing money, from sheer neces...

While Lowell was becoming famous indirectly as the anonymous author of the "Biglow Papers" and "A Fable for Critics," he was writing and publishing over his own name sweet, simp...

James Russell Lowell was born on the 22d of February, 1819, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Elmwood, the home of the Lowells, was to the west of the village of Cambridge, quite nea...

"Everybody almost is calling me 'indolent.' 'Blind dependent on my own powers' and 'on fate.' Confound everybody! since everybody confounds me. Everybody seems to see but one si...

Making a journey without money, without knowing the language of the people, and without any experience in travel is not at all the sort of thing it seems to one who has not gone...

At the age of eighteen there came a change in Poe's life. Until then he had been a petted child in a wealthy family. Mr. Allan did not have that affection for him which Mrs. All...

A journey to Europe was not the common thing in those days that it has since become, and no American had then thought of tramping over historic scenes with little or no money. S...

Once more the young poet found himself cast out on the world, without home or friends. He could hope for nothing more from Mr. Allan, after his disgrace at the military academy,...

Irving's first literary composition seems to have been a play written when he was thirteen. It was performed at the house of a friend, in the presence of a famous actress of tha...

As far as is known, Lowell never earned a dollar by the law. He soon began to pick up a five or a ten dollar bill here and there by writing for current periodicals. His book bro...

Next to "The Raven," Poe's most famous work is that fascinating story, "The Gold-Bug," perhaps the best detective story that was ever written, for it is based on logical princip...

Soon after returning from this trip, Irving became a clerk in the law office of a Mr. Hoffman. There was a warm friendship between him and Mr. Hoffman's family. Mrs. Hoffman was...

"Left his lodgings, some time since, and has not since been heard of, a small elderly gentleman, dressed in an old black coat and cocked hat, by the name of Knickerbocker. As th...

The Revolutionary War was over. The British soldiers were preparing to embark on their ships and sail back over the ocean, and General Washington would soon enter New York city...

Irving's health was by no means good, and his friends were so alarmed that when he was twenty-one they planned a trip to Europe for him. As he stepped on board the boat that was...

Edgar Allan Poe was descended on his father's side from a Revolutionary hero, General David Poe. The Poes were a good family of Baltimore, where many of them still live as promi...

Bayard had the advantage of regular attendance at the country schools near his father's home, with two or three years at the local academy; but his father could not afford to se...

During the months he spent in Egypt, Syria, and Asia Minor, Bayard Taylor wrote his "Poems of the Orient," of which Mr. Stoddard says, "I thought, and I think so still when I re...

When Irving went to Liverpool in 1815, it was his intention to travel on the continent of Europe. As we have seen, business reasons made that impossible. But after the publicati...

While he was worrying over the failure of his business, Irving was fortunate enough to make some distinguished literary friendships. He had already helped to introduce Thomas Ca...

"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" also purports to be written by Diedrich Knickerbocker, and it is only less famous than "Rip Van Winkle." When he was a boy, Irving had gone hunting...

Who has not felt the weird fascination of Poe's strangely beautiful poem "The Raven"? Perhaps on some stormy evening you have read it until the "silken, sad, uncertain rustling...

Washington Irving returned to New York, quite restored to health; and there he soon became a social hero. Trips to Europe were so uncommon in those days that to have made one wa...

It is the will and the spirit that makes every life seem happy or the reverse. If Bayard Taylor had remained a farmer in Kennett Square all his life, he would not have looked ba...

With the building of Cedarcroft, and the publication of his "Poet's Journal," Bayard Taylor's fame and fortune reached their height. The Civil War was now on the point of breaki...

On the 14th of February, 1826, he wrote his name and the place and date of his birth, in the matriculation book of the University of Virginia, the famous college founded by Jeff...