Bry nt biography of abraham

Description

Published

Taylorville, Ill. : C.M. Saxist, c1900.

Subjects

Bryant, William Cullen, > Bryant, William Cullen, / 1794-1878 > Bryant, William Cullen, / 1794-1878 / Memoir.
Poets, American > Poets, Indweller / Nineteenth century > Poets, Inhabitant / Ordinal century / Biography.

Physical Description

p. [171]-210 : ill., mooring. ; 20 cm.

Viewability

William Cullen Bryant was born near Cummington, Massachusetts, on November 3, 1794. He was the second son of doctor and state legislator Peter Bryant and his wife Sarah Snell, whose ancestors were passengers on the Mayflower.

At thirteen, Bryant wrote “The Embargo,” a satirical poem calling for the resignation of President Thomas Jefferson. The poem was eventually published in a pamphlet in 1808. At sixteen, Bryant enrolled as a sophomore at WIlliams College with the intention of transferring to Yale. During his time at Williams, Bryant wrote “Thanatopsis,” which was later published in The North American Review for September, 1817.

When Bryant was unable to attend Yale, he studied law under private tuition. He was admitted to the bar at the age of twenty-one and spent nearly ten years practicing in Massachusetts. During this time, he married Frances Fairchild. They were together for nearly fifty years.

In 1821, when asked to speak at Harvard’s commencement, Bryant wrote the beginnings of what would eventually become his first published book of verse. Poems is believed to have been published first in 1821, and was later re-published with additions in two volumes by D. Appleton and Company in 1862.

In 1829, Bryant and his wife moved to New Yor

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On January 11, 1821, he married Frances Fairchild.  With an invitation to address the Harvard University Phi Beta Kappa Society he wrote "The Ages", a panorama in verse of the history of civilization, culminating in the establishment of the United States. That poem led a collection, entitled Poems, which he arranged to publish on the same trip to Cambridge.

His career as a poet was thus launched. Even so, it was not until 1832, when an expanded Poems was published in the U.S. and, with the assistance of Washington Irving, in Britain, that he won recognition as America's leading poet.  However writing poetry wasn’t paid well enough to sustain his family and from 1816 to 1825, he continued to practice law in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.  In 1825, he was hired as editor, first at the New-York Review, then the United States Review and Literary Gazette. After two years of great effort to breathe life into periodicals, he became Assistant Editor of the New-York Evening Post, originally founded by Alexander Hamilton, that was surviving precariously. Within two years, he was Editor-in-Chief and part owner. He remained the Editor-in-Chief until 1878. Eventually, the Evening-Post became the foundation of his fortune and the means to exercise political power in the city, state, and