1870 William Cullen Bryant Poet Thanatopsis Journalist Autograph Letter Pieces for Sale

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1870 William Cullen Bryant Poet Thanatopsis Journalist Autograph Letter Pieces For Sale

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1870 William Cullen Bryant Poet Thanatopsis Journalist Autograph Letter Pieces:
$274.00

This 1870 William Cullen Bryant US Poet Author Journalist Autograph Letter Pieces is the exact item you will receive and has been certified Authentic by REM Fine Collectibles.
William Cullen Bryant (November 3, 1794 – June 12, 1878) was an American romantic poet, journalist, and long-time editor of the New York Evening Post. Born in Massachusetts, he started his career as a lawyer but showed an interest in poetry early in his life.
In 1815, Bryant was admitted to the bar in 1815 and began practicing law in nearby Plainfield, walking the seven miles from Cummington every day. On one of these walks, in December 1815, he noticed a single bird flying on the horizon; the sight moved him enough to write "To a Waterfowl".
Bryant developed his interest in poetry early in life. Under his father's tutelage, he emulated Alexander Pope and other Neo-Classic British poets. "The Embargo", a critical work on President Thomas Jefferson published in 1808, reflected Bryant's Federalist political views.
The first edition quickly sold out, partly because of publicity attached to Bryant's young age at the time of its publication. A second, expanded edition included Bryant's translation of classical verse.
During his collegiate studies and his reading for the law, he wrote little poetry, but encounters with the Graveyard Poets and then William Wordsworth regenerated his passion for what Bryant called "the witchery of song."
In 1825, Bryant relocated to New York City, where he became an editor of two major newspapers. He also emerged as one of the most significant poets in early literary America and has been grouped among the fireside poets for his accessible and popular poetry.
The genealogy of his mother traces back to passengers on the Mayflower, including John Alden (1599–1687), his wife Priscilla Mullins, and her parents William and Alice Mullins. The story of the romance between John and Priscilla is the subject of a famous narrative poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow The Courtship of Miles Standish.
Thanatopsis" is Bryant's most famous poem, which Bryant may have been working on as early as 1811.
In 1817, his father took some pages of verse from his son's desk, and at the invitation of Willard Phillips, an editor of the North American Review who had previously been tutored in the classics by Bryant, submitted them along with his own work.
The editor of the Review, Edward Tyrrel Channing, read the poem to associate editor Richard Henry Dana Sr., who immediately exclaimed, "That was never written on this side of the water!"
Someone at the North American joined two of the son's discrete fragments, gave the result the Greek-derived title Thanatopsis ("meditation on death"), mistakenly attributed it to the father, and published it. After clarification of the authorship, the son's poems began appearing with some regularity in the Review.
A portion of Bryant's poem, Thanatopsis, is at the base of the William Cullen Bryant Memorial behind the New York Public Library, which was dedicated in 1911. "To a Waterfowl", published in 1821, was the most popular.
On January 11, 1821, still striving to build a legal career, Bryant married Frances Fairchild. Soon after, he received an invitation to speak from Phi Beta Kappa at Harvard University to deliver the August commencement.
Bryant spent months working on "The Ages", a panorama in verse of the history of civilization, culminating in the establishment of the United States. He subsequently published "The Ages", which led the volume and was titled Poems, which he arranged to publish on the same trip to Harvard. For that book, he added sets of lines at the beginning and end of "Thanatopsis" that changed the poem.
"Thanatopsis" established Bryant's career as a poet. From 1816 to 1825, Bryant depended on his law practice in Great Barrington, Massachusetts to sustain his family financially but he traded his unrewarding profession for New York City and the promise of a literary career. With the encouragement of a distinguished and well-connected literary family, the Sedgwicks, he quickly gained a foothold in New York City's vibrant cultural life.
By 1832, after publishing an expanded version of Poems in the U.S. and, with the assistance of Washington Irving, in Great Britain, Bryant began to be recognized as one of his generation's greatest poets.
Bryant's first employment, in 1825, was as editor of the New-York Review, which merged with the United States Review and Literary Gazette the following year, in 1826. Bryant's stories over the seven-year period from his time with the Review to the publication of Tales of Glauber Spa in 1832 show a variety of strategies, making him the most inventive of practitioners of the genre during this early stage of its evolution.
In the throes of the failing struggle to raise subscriptions, he accepted part-time duties with the New-York Evening Post under William Coleman; then, partly because of Coleman's ill health, traceable to the consequences of a duel and then a stroke, Bryant's responsibilities expanded rapidly.
From assistant editor he rose to editor-in-chief and co-owner of the newspaper that had been founded by Alexander Hamilton. Over the next half century, the Post would become the most respected paper in the city and, from the election of Andrew Jackson, the major platform in the Northeast for the Democratic Party and subsequently of the Free Soil and Republican Parties.
In the process, the Evening-Post also became the pillar of a substantial fortune. Despite his Federalist beginnings, Bryant had shifted to being one of the most liberal voices of the century.
An early supporter of organized labor, with his 1836 editorials asserting the right of workmen to strike, Bryant also defended religious minorities and immigrants, and promoted the abolition of slavery.
He "threw himself into the foreground of the battle for human rights" and did not cease speaking out against the corrupting influence of certain bankers in spite of their efforts to break down the paper. According to newspaper historian Frank Luther Mott, Bryant was "a great liberal seldom done justice by modern writers".
He was elected an associate fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1855.
Despite his once staunch opposition to Thomas Jefferson and his party, Bryant became one of the key supporters in the Northeast of that same party under Jackson. Bryant's views, always progressive though not quite populist, led him to join the Free Soilers when the Free Soil Party became a core of the new Republican Party in 1856.
Bryant vigorously campaigned for John Frémont, which enhanced his standing in party councils. In 1860, he was one of the prime Eastern exponents of Abraham Lincoln, and Bryant introduced Lincoln at Cooper Union prior to his Cooper Union speech, which was considered influential in lifting Lincoln to the nomination and then the presidency. In the 1860 presidential election, he elected Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin as a presidential elector.
Bryant edited Picturesque America, which was published between 1872 and 1874. This two-volume set was lavishly illustrated and described scenic places in the United States and Canada.