Publisher's Synopsis
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (February 27, 1807 - March 24, 1882) was an American poet and educator whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline. He was also the first American to translate Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy and was one of the five Fireside Poets from New England. Longfellow was born in Portland, Maine, which was then still part of Massachusetts. He studied at Bowdoin College and, after spending time in Europe, he became a professor at Bowdoin and later at Harvard College. His first major poetry collections were Voices of the Night (1839) and Ballads and Other Poems (1841). Longfellow retired from teaching in 1854 to focus on his writing, and he lived the remainder of his life in a former Revolutionary War headquarters of George Washington in Cambridge, Massachusetts. 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. He died in 1882. Longfellow wrote many lyric poems known for their musicality and often presenting stories of mythology and legend. 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 writing specifically for the masses. Death of Frances: July 9, 1861 was a hot day, and Fanny was putting locks of her children's hair into an envelope and attempting to seal it with hot sealing wax while Longfellow took a nap.[70] Her dress suddenly caught fire, though it is unclear exactly how;burning wax or a lighted candle may have fallen onto it. Longfellow was awakened from his nap and rushed to help her, throwing a rug over her, though it was too small. He stifled the flames with his body as best he could, but she was already badly burned.Over half a century later, Longfellow's youngest daughter Annie explained the story differently, claiming that there had been no candle or wax but that the fire had started from a self-lighting match that had fallen on the floor. Both accounts state that Fanny was taken to her room to recover and a doctor was called. She was in and out of consciousness throughout the night and was administered ether. She died shortly after 10:00 the next morning, July 10, after requesting a cup of coffee. Longfellow, in trying to save her, had burned himself badly enough so that he was unable to attend her funeral.His facial injuries led him to stop shaving, and he wore a beard from then on that became his trademark. Longfellow was devastated by her death and never fully recovered; he occasionally resorted to laudanum and ether to deal with his grief. He worried that he would go insane, begging "not to be sent to an asylum" and noting that he was "inwardly bleeding to death".He expressed his grief in the sonnet "The Cross of Snow" (1879) which he wrote 18 years later to commemorate her death: Such is the cross I wear upon my breast These eighteen years, through all the changing scenes And seasons, changeless since the day she died.
