Nesmith Library

Cross of snow, a life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Nicholas A. Basbanes

eng

Includes bibliographical references and index

individual biography

illustrationsportraits

index present

non fiction

Cross of snow

bibliography

Nicholas A. Basbanes

a life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

In Cross of Snow, the result of more than twelve years of research, including access to never-before-examined letters, diaries, journals, notes, Nicholas Basbanes reveals the life, the times, the work--the soul--of the man who shaped the literature of a new nation with his countless poems, sonnets, stories, essays, translations, and whose renown was so wide-reaching that his deep friendships included Charles Dickens, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Julia Ward Howe, and Oscar Wilde. Basbanes writes of the shaping of Longfellow's character, his huge body of work that included translations of numerous foreign works, among them, the first rendering into a complete edition by an American of Dante's Divine Comedy. We see Longfellow's two marriages, both happy and contented, each cut short by tragedy. His first to Mary Storer Potter that ended in the aftermath of a miscarriage, leaving Longfellow devastated. His second marriage to the brilliant Boston socialite--Fanny Appleton, after a three-year pursuit by Longfellow (his "fiery crucible," he called it), and his emergence as a literary force and a man of letters. A portrait of a bold artist, experimenter of poetic form and an innovative translator--the human being that he was, the times in which he lived, the people whose lives he touched, his monumental work and its place in his America and ours

The wind's will -- Awakening -- The holy ones -- Child of the tempest -- Moving on -- Bellisima Italia -- Switzerland -- Pent up fire -- Mutual admiration society -- Castles in Spain -- Magic circle -- Camelot on the Charles -- At the summit -- Pericles and Aspasia -- Balance and harmony -- Hour of darkness -- Perfect peace -- Daybreak everywhere