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Longfellow

Page 34

by Charles C. Calhoun


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  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  One of the pleasures of writing about Longfellow has been the frequency with which friends and strangers alike have offered evidence of his survival in American culture, whether a fond memory of having to memorize “The Wreck of the Hesperus” in eighth grade or the mention of a Lake Minnehaha in their home town. Sharing a cab to the airport in Indianapolis not long ago, to take only one example, I learned from my fellow passenger Carol Bosserman that the Cross of Snow in Longfellow’s great sonnet still exists: on Colorado’s Holy Cross Mountain. I cannot begin to express my thanks to all these contributors to this project.

  But the role played by several friends, colleagues, and librarians has been so central to the task, I am happy to have this opportunity to salute them. They form a kind of virtual Dante Club, meeting in the pages of this book—if only I could offer them the oysters, the game pie, the Chambertin afterward!

  First, Deanne Urmy, my original editor at Beacon and a gallant champion of this book, and her successor, Amy Caldwell, a paragon of patience, insight, and thoughtful enthusiasm. They brought to our meetings over six years the intellectual zest of the ideal tutorial (we took turns as tutor and pupil). Anyone who thinks modern American publishing is a grim, soulless, mechanical business has not dealt with Beacon Press, at the corner of Mount Vernon and the aptly named Joy Street in Boston. My thanks to publisher Helene Atwan for
bringing such a staff together.

  For help during the very earliest, preconscious stages of this book, I am grateful to Malcolm David Eckel and Mark W. Cutler, who each in his own way turned me into a New Englander. This transformation was enhanced by the hospitality and friendship of the late Donald Colton Esty Jr., at whose last party on Greening Island, Maine, in 1992 I met Frances Appleton Wetherell, Longfellow’s great-granddaughter through the Thorp line. She and Brad Wetherell have become both valued friends and the tutelary genii of this project.

  The book would not have been possible without the generous support of loyal friends who made the research trips possible. I deeply thank David Ober (who introduced me to Nova Scotia), Waltrud Lampé, John A. Herring, and my late uncle Charles H. Calhoun, of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, who funded one year of the archival research. A second year was made possible by the National Endowment for the Humanities, by way of a Research Fellowship in 2000 in their admirable category of “independent scholar.”

  Support both practical and inspirational also came from my colleagues at the Maine Humanities Council, especially its legendary director Dorothy Schwartz. At the Council both Erik Jorgensen and Victoria Bonebakker (the first person to urge this project on) have contributed more than they realize.

  Some of my happiest moments of the past six years have been spent in the rare books and manuscripts departments of several great libraries. The Platonic ideal of such places is the Houghton Library at Harvard, whose staff (especially Susan Halpern and Tom Ford) were invariably welcoming, helpful, and dauntingly efficient. (And at how many other libraries in the world will you be offered coffee and cake as a pick-me-up every Friday morning?) Closer to home, the Maine Historical Society has played a central role in my work, both as custodian of the Longfellow-Wadsworth House and as sponsor of the annual Longfellow Forum, held in Portland each September. My warm thanks to its director, Richard D’Abate; its librarian, Nicholas Noyes; its registrar, Holly Hurd-Forsythe; and the entire staff. And, if there is any institution for which I feel unqualified love, it is the Hawthorne-Longfellow Library at Bowdoin College. Such education as I have, I got there. My deepest thanks to librarian Sherrie Bergman, special collections librarian Richard H.F. Lindemann and his staff, Patricia Mishrall and Phyllis McQuaide in circulation, and most especially associate director Judith Montgomery.

  I am also grateful to the Boston Athenaeum (where early chapters of this book were written), especially James Feeney in circulation, the Bostonian Society, the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, the Massachusetts Historical Society, the Maine State Library, the Bodleian Library and Oxford University Archives, the Pejepscot Historical Society (Brunswick, Maine), the Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Greater Portland Landmarks, the Portland Museum of Art, the Portland Public Library, the libraries of the University of Maine and the University of Southern Maine, and the Countway Medical Library of the Harvard Medical School.

  Warren Davis of the National Trust, Great Britain, was, as always, hospitable and eager to help, and I am especially grateful to John Whitton for getting me into the Carlyle House out of season.

  The Longfellow National Historic Site—the Craigie House—in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is proving perhaps the most effective agency of all in keeping Longfellow’s name before the public. It has been my privilege not only to use its archives (and wander its rooms) but to become friends with its enthusiastic and scholarly staff, including site manager James Shea, archivist Anita Israel, director of visitor services Nancy Jones, and senior guide Paul Blanchard.

  My understanding of Longfellow’s region (and his role in creating it) grows out of my collaboration in teacher professional development programs with the scholars of the American and New England Studies Program at the University of Southern Maine. I am grateful to Joseph Conforti, who introduced me to the concept of regional studies, and his colleagues Donna Cassidy, Kent Ryden, and Ardis Cameron. Portland is also blessed in having a cluster of superb local historians (“local” in the sense of their topographical focus, not in the range of their expertise): I have in mind Joyce Butler (the first to explore the Wadsworth and Longfellow families), Laura F. Sprague (consultant for the recent Wadsworth-Longfellow House restoration), William David Barry, and State Representative Herbert Adams.

  Among academic specialists on Longfellow’s work, I don’t think there is anyone the poet-professor would have more enjoyed meeting than my friend Christoph Irmscher, now at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. And since Longfellow loved books as physical objects as well, let me hasten to include in this circle the bibliophile Victor Gulotta, who kindly let me explore his collection before its recent transferal to the Houghton Library.

  A number of other friends offered much appreciated support throughout the project, notably Sarah and Neil Gallagher, Jay Selberg, Stephen Hall, Ruth Peck, Linda Docherty, John Woodhead (who made it possible for me to live on Casco Bay, not far from the site of Longfellow’s Verandah Hotel), Donna Gulotta, Gordon and Molly Dean, and my friends on the annual “Leaves and Literature” tours. The everinquisitive members of the Longfellow Seminar, an NEH-funded teacher institute of the Maine Humanities Council, deserve special recognition, too.

  And, finally, my thanks to Michael, without whom none of this would have happened.

  INDEX

  Please note that page numbers are not accurate for the e-book edition.

  Abbot, John, 10

  Acadians, xi, 16, 180, 181–82, 183, 184–85, 188, 259–60. See also Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie

  Adams, Henry, 128–29

  Adams, John and Abigail, 125

  “Aftermath,” xiv, 240, 256

  Agassiz, Louis, 242

  Albert, Prince, 3

  Alden, Priscilla, xi

  Algic Researches (Schoolcraft), 207

  Allen, William, 33, 35, 59, 64, 72

  Allston, Washington, 134

  American Common-Place Book of Poetry, 79

  American Notes (Dickens), 155

  Anderson, Benedict, xiv, 258

  Andrew (Governor), 225

  Anesthesia, 189

  “Anglo-Saxon Language and Literature,” 80

  Appleton, Charles, 119–20

  Appleton, Frances (Fanny). See Longfellow,

  Frances (Fanny)

  Appleton, Harriet, 225

  Appleton, John James, 113

  Appleton, Mary, 122, 143, 164

  Appleton, Nathan (father), 119, 164, 167, 170, 220

  Appleton, Theresa Gold, 119

  Appleton, Thomas Gold, 121, 122, 143, 163, 164, 167, 171, 229, 247

  Appleton, William, 119, 121, 122

  Appleton family, 119, 122, 225

  Arnold, Benedict, 125

  Arnold, Matthew, 254

  “Arrow and the Song, The,” 176

  “Arsenal at Springfield, The,” 175–76

  Arvin, Newton, xii, 255–56

  Atlantic Monthly, 221, 231

  Auden, W. H., 251, 259

  Audubon, John, 185

  Authors Group (L’Africain lithograph), 243

  Babbage, Charles, 98–99

  Ballads and Other Poems, 138–42, 150; reviews of, 159; earnings from (1857), 199

  Bancroft, George, 49

  Banvard, John, 185

  Barbary pirates, 11

  Barlow, Joel, 180

  “Baron of St. Castine, The,” 233

  Basbanes, Nicholas A., 257–58

  “Battle of Lovell’s Pond, The,” 24–25, 202

  Belfry of Bruges and Other Poems, The, 170, 175–78, 199

  “Bells of San Blas, The,” 55

  Belshazzar’s Feast (attempted painting by Allston), 134

  Bennett, W.C., 251

  Bentley, Richard, 105

  Beowulf, 80, 109

  Berdan, James, 78

  Berzelius, Jons Jakob, 108

  Birds of America (Audubon), 185

  “Birds of Killingworth, The,” 233–35

  Birds of Passage, 199<
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  Boccaccio, Giovanni: and Tales of a Wayside Inn, 230

  Books of Longfellow’s youth, 22–23

  Bosworth, Dr. Joseph, 116, 118

  Bowdoin, James II, 35

  Bowdoin, James III, 34, 43

  Bowdoin College, 29, 32–33, 34–36; Longfellow’s grandfather among founders of, 16; Longfellow’s father on governing boards of, 19; Longfellow as student at, 33–34, 35, 36–38; and Longfellow trip abroad, 40–42; country setting of, 54; Longfellow tutorship offered by, 58–59; Göttingen contrasted with, 61; and Old Dominion Zeitung lampoon, 64; Longfellow as professor at, 68–69, 72–79; contest over control of, 72; Longfellow on location of, 72; Greene as possible successor at, 79; and slavery controversy, 92; Longfellow’s fiftieth reunion at, 240–42

  Bowring, John, 98

  Bracebridge Hall (Irving), 52, 85

  Bridge, Horatio, 36

  “Bridge, The,” 176–78

  Bridgman, Laura, 190–91

  Britain: Longfellow’s visits to, 97–106, 238; Longfellow’s feelings toward, 181

  Broadway Journal, 160

  Brock, Thomas, 251

  Brongniart, Alexandre, 43

  Brooks, Preston, 201

  Brown, George F. (HWL pen name), 76

  Brown, John, 201

  Browning, Robert, 254

  Bryant, William Cullen, 52, 79, 121, 171

  Buckingham, Joseph T., 88

  Buell, Lawrence, 28–29, 256

  “Building of the Ship, The,” 194–96

  Bull, Ole, 232

  Bulwer, Edward (later Lord Lytton), 98, 238

  Burns, Robert, 139

  Bushman, Richard, 84

  Butler, Mrs. Benjamin, 223

  Byrd, Robert, ix

  Byron, Ada, 98

  Byron, Lord, 85

  Cajun culture, xi, 260

  Cambridge University: degree from, 238

  Cameron, Julia Margaret, 222, 238–39

  Capital punishment: Longfellows’ opposition to, 263

  Carey & Hart, 138, 175

  Caricaturist: Longfellow as, 64, 227

  Carlyle, Jane, 100–101, 102, 103

  Carlyle, Thomas, 2, 100, 101–2, 103–4, 144, 254

  Carr, Helen, 204

  Carroll, Lewis, 211

  Carter, N. H., 22

 

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