Longfellow's Wayside Inn in Sudbury, Massachusetts, is the most venerable of all the old historic taverns still operating in America. Built three hundred years ago by the How family, it has witnessed Indian affairs, colonial wars and the coming of the stagecoach, railroad and automobile. The poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow immortalized it in verse with his 1863 collection Tales of a Wayside Inn, suddenly making it a desired destination for travelers. Longfellow's romanticized description of the inn later so inspired Henry Ford that he purchased and restored the building and its surrounding three thousand acres. Join author Brian Plumb as he traverses the highways of New England's history to discover the stories of Longfellow's Wayside Inn.

Longfellow's Wayside Inn in Sudbury, Massachusetts, is the most venerable of all the old historic taverns still operating in America. Built three hundred years ago by the How family, it has witnessed Indian affairs, colonial wars and the coming of the stagecoach, railroad and automobile. The poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow immortalized it in verse with his 1863 collection Tales of a Wayside Inn, suddenly making it a desired destination for travelers. Longfellow's romanticized description of the inn later so inspired Henry Ford that he purchased and restored the building and its surrounding three thousand acres. Join author Brian Plumb as he traverses the highways of New England's history to discover the stories of Longfellow's Wayside Inn.

A major literary biography of America's best-loved nineteenth-century poet, the first in more than fifty years, and a much-needed reassessment for the twenty-first century of a writer whose stature and celebrity were unparalleled in his time, whose work helped to explain America's new world not only to Americans but to Europe and beyond. From the author of On Paper ("Buoyant"--The New Yorker; "Essential"--Publishers Weekly), Patience and Fortitude ("A wonderful hymn"--Simon Winchester), and A Gentle Madness ("A jewel"--David McCullough). 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.

This beautiful edition of Longfellow's classic poem features stunning illustrations and insightful commentary. A must-have for poetry lovers and bird enthusiasts alike. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.