Strangers to Us All Lawyers and Poetry

James Russell Lowell

(1819-1891)


Engraving by J.A.J. Wilcox
in
M. A. DeWolfe Howe, American Bookmen: Sketches, Chiefly Biographical, of Certain Writers of the Nineteenth Century
(New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1898)

Poet, critic, essayist, editor, and diplomat. An important literary figure in the last half of the 19th century.


Brady-Handy Photograph Collection
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C.

"The foremost American man of letters. He was born in Cambridge, and was graduated from Harvard University in 1839, where he succeeded Longfellow as professor of belles-lettres in 1855. He was one of the founders of the Atlantic Monthly, editing that periodical from the start in 1857 until 1862, and co-editor of The North American Review with C.E. Norton ... 1863-72. In 1877, he was appointed minister to Spain, and in 1878 transferred to England, where he remained as minister until 1885. He did much to make America and American letters respected in England, and was very popular with the English people both as a man and as a writer, a window having been placed to his memory in the chapter-house of Westminster Abbey in 1893."

[Oscar Fay Adams, A Dictionary of American Authors 236 (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1899)]



| ca. 1860s |

James Russell Lowell
Perspectives in American Literature

Introductory Note

Edgar Allen Poe on Lowell

Notice of the Pioneer
Edgar Allen Poe (1843)

 

Poems

["The Vision of Sir Launfal"; "She Came and Went"; "The Present Crisis"; "What is so Rare as a Day in June"; Rhoecus"; "The Commemoration Ode" -- online text] [She Came and Went] [The Courtin'] [Credidimus Jovem Regnare] [From "Rhocus"] [A Stanza on Freedom] [In a Copy of Omar Khayyám] [Hebe] [The First Snow-Fall] [Palinode] [Palinode (Autumn)] [Without and Within] [An Autograph] [After the Burial] [In the Twilight] [Telepathy] [Petition] [What Mr. Robinson Thinks] [Auf Wiedersehen] [International Copyright] [Song] [The Present Crisis] [The Washers of the Shroud] [From "The Vision of Sir Launfal"]

Poems of James Russell Lowell

Selected Sonnets
"Love," "Love and Sorrow," "The Street"
"Jeffries Wyman," "To a Friend," "To Miss D. T."

James Russell Lowell Online Books of Poetry

 


Evert A. & George L. Duyckinck, The Cyclopedia of American Literature 609
(Philadelphia: William Rutter & Co., 1880)(vol. 2)



Thos. W. Herringshaw, The Biographical Review of Prominent Men and Women
of the Day
(Chicago: Elliott and Beezley, 1889)

[Used with permission of the Florida Center for Instructional Technology]

Poetry

James Russell Lowell, Class Poem (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Cambridge Press; Metcalf, Torry, and Ballou, 1838) [online text]

________________, A Year's Life (Boston: C.C. Little and J. Brown, 1841) [online text]

________________, Poems (Philadelphia: H. Altemus, 1842)

________________, Poems (Cambridge: J. Owen, 1844)(London: C.D. Mudie, 1844) [online text] [[review by Edgar Allen Poe]

________________, Poems (Cambridge: G. Nichols; Boston: B. B. Mussey and Company, 1848)(1847)

________________, The Vision of Sir Launfal and Other Poems (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Company, 1848) [online text]

________________, The Biglow Papers (1848)(London: Trübner & Co., 1859) [online text]

________________, A Fable for Critics (1848)(London: Gay & Bird, 1890) [online text]

________________, Poems (Boston: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, 1849)(2 vols.)

________________, The Poetical Works of James R. Lowell (Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1858)(2 vols.)(Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1863) [vol. 1: online text]

________________, The Ode Recited at the Harvard Commemoration (1865)

________________, The Biglow Papers: Second Series (1867)(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2nd ed. 1886)(1885)(St. Clair Shores, Michigan: Scholarly Press, 1970)

________________, The Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell (Boston: Fields, Osgood, 1869)

________________, Under the Willows, and Other Poems (Boston: Fields, Osgood, 1869) [online text]

________________, The Cathedral (Boston: Fields, Osgood, 1870) [online text]

________________, The Poetical Works of James R. Lowell (Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1871)(2 vols.)

________________, The Vision of Sir Launfal. The Cathedral. Favorite Poems (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1875) [online text] (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1905) [online text]

________________, Three Memorial Poems (Boston: J.R. Osgood, 1877)(1876) [online text]

________________, Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, Household ed., 1885)

________________, Under the Old Elm, and Other Poems (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1885) [online text] [online text] [online text]

________________, Early Poems (New York: J.B. Alden, 1887)

________________, Heartsease and Rue (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1888) [online text]

________________, The Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Co.; Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1890)(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1978) [Poems (vol. 3): online text]

________________, Early Poems (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell and Co., 1892) [online text]

________________, Odes, Lyrics and Sonnets from the Poetic Works of James Russell Lowell (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1892) [online text]

________________, Poems (New York: F. A. Stokes Company, Vignette ed., 1894)

________________, Last Poems of James Russell Lowell (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1895) [online text] [online text] [online text]

________________, The Complete Poetical Words of James Russell Lowell (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1895)(Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1896) [online text] (editions in 1897, 1899, 1910, 1917, 1925)

________________, Poems of James Russell Lowell (Boston: T. Y. Crowell, 1898)(biographical sketch by Nathan Haskell Dole) [online text]

________________, Complete Works (New York: Sully and Kleinteich, University ed., 1890-1910)

________________, The Vision of Sir Launfal, and Other Poems (Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1900) [online text] [online text]

________________, Poems of James Russell Lowell (New York: Oxford University Press, 1917)(Oxford Edition) [online text]

________________, Uncollected Poems (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1950)(Thelma M. Smith ed.)

Correspondence

Charles Eliot Norton (ed.), Letters of James Russell Lowell (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1894)(1893)(3 vols.) [vol. 2: online text]

M.A. De Wolfe Howe (ed.), New Letters of James Russell Lowell (New York: Harper, 1932)

William Smith Clark II (ed.), Essays, Poems and Letters (New York: Odyssey Press, 1948)

M.A. DeWolfe Howe & G.W. Cottrell, Jr. (eds.), The Scholar-Friends: Letters of Francis James Child and James Russell Lowell (Cambridge: Harvard University Library, 1952)

Gertrude Reese Hudson (ed.), Browning to His American Friends; Letters Between the Brownings, the Storys and James Russell Lowell, 1841-1890 (London: Bowes and Bowes, 1965)(New York: Barnes and Noble, 1965)

James L. Woodress (ed.), The Lowell-Howells Friendship: Some Unpublished Letters, 26 New England Quarterly 523-528 (1953)

Writings

Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln, 1864-1865

My Garden Acquaintance

My Garden Acquaintance

Democracy: Inaugural Address on Assuming the Presidency
of the Birmingham and Midland Institute

Birmingham, England
October 6, 1884

James Russell Lowell, A Year's Life (Boston: C.C. Little and J. Brown, 1841) [online text]

________________, Conversations on Some of the Old Poets (Cambridge, Massachusetts: J. Owen, 1845)(Philadelphia: David McKay, 3rd ed., 1893) [online text] (New York: T. Y. Crowell & Co. 1901)

________________, Melibous-Hipponax The Biglow Papers (New York: G.P. Putnam, 1848)(Homer Wilbur ed.)(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1885)[online text]

________________, Fireside Travels (Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1864)(Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 17th ed., 1890)

________________, The Cathedral (Boston: Fields, Osgood, & Co., 1870)(1869)

________________, Among My Books (Boston: Fields, Osgood, 1870)(Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1904)(3 vols.) [vol. 2: online text] (St. Clair Shores, Michigan: Scholarly Press, 1969)

________________, My Study Windows (Boston: J.R. Osgood and Company, 1871)(Boston: James R. Osgood and Co., 1876) [online text] (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 35th ed., 1895)(Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1913) [online text] (New York: AMS Press, 1971)

________________, My Garden Acquaintance, A Good Word for Winter, A Moosehead Journal (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1871) [online text] [online text]

________________, The Courtin' (Boston: J. R. Osgood and Company, 1874)(New York: Walker, 1968)

________________, A Moosehead Journal (Boston: J.R. Osgood, 1877) [online text] [online text]

________________, The Rose (Boston: J.R. Osgood and Company, 1878)(1877)

________________, Democracy and Other Addresses (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1887)(1886) [online text]

________________, Democracy: An Address Delivered in the Town Hall, Birmingham (London: Macmillan, 1887)(Cambridge, Massachusetts: Riverside Press, 1902) [online text]

________________, Richard the Third and the Primrose Criticism (Chicago: McClurg, 1887)

________________, Political Essays (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1888)

________________, The English Poets: Lessing, Rousseau: Essays by James Russell Lowell, with "An Apology for a Preface." (London: Walter Scott, 1888) [online text]

________________, Books and Libraries, and Other Papers (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1889)

________________, Literary Essays (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1890)(vol.3) [online text]

________________, Political Essays (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1890) [online text]

________________, The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Ten Volumes (Fireside Edition)(Boston: Houghton, Mifflin Co., 1890)

________________, A Fable for Critics (London: Gay and Bird, 1890) [online text] (New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1891) [online text]

________________, Latest Literary Essays and Addresses of James Russell Lowell (Cambridge, Printed at the Riverside Press, 1891)

________________, Lowell Gems (Boston: S.E. Cassino, 1891)

________________, Fireside Travels (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1892) [online text]

________________, The Old English Dramatists (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1892)(Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1895) [online text]

________________, American Ideas for English Readers (Boston: J. G. Cupples Co., 1892) [online text]

________________, Latest Literary Essays and Addresses (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1892) [online text] (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1898)

________________, Lectures on English Poets (Cleveland, 1897)

________________, Impressions of Spain (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1899)

________________, The Anti-Slavery Papers of James Russell Lowell (Boston: Houghton Mifflin and Co., 1902)(2 vols.) [vol. 1: online text]

________________, Early Prose Writings of James Russell Lowell (New York: John Lane, 1903)(1902)(introd. by Walter Littlefield) [online text]

________________, The Complete Writings of James Russell Lowell (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, Elmwood ed., 1904)(16 vols.)(New York: AMS Press, 1966)

________________, Literary and Political Addresses (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1904) [online text]

________________, Essays, English and American (New York: P F Collier & Son, 1910) [online text]

________________, The Round Table (Boston: R. G. Badger, 1913) [online text]

________________, Selected Literary Essays from James Russell Lowell (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1914)

________________, The Earliest Essays (New York: The Macmillian Co., 1916) [online text]

________________, The Function of the Poet, and Other Essays (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1920) [online text] (Port Washington, New York: Kennikat Press, 1967)(1920)(Albert Mordell ed.)

Bibliography

Richmond Croom Beatty, James Russell Lowell (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1942)(Hamden, Connecticut: Archon Books, 1969)

E. E. Brown, Life of James Russell Lowell (Chicago: The Werner Co., 1895) [online text]

Harry Hayden Clark & Norman Foerster (ed.), James Russell Lowell: Representative Selections (New York: American Book, 1947)


Robert Charles Le Clair, Three American Travellers in England: James Russell Lowell, Henry Adams, Henry James (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1978)(1945)

George Willis Cooke, A Bibliography of James Russell Lowell (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1906) [online text] (Boston: Milford House, 1972)

Martin Duberman, James Russell Lowell (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1966)

C.M. Fuess, Some Forgotten Political Essays by Lowell, 62 Proceedings of the Massacxhusetts Historical Society 3-12 (1929)

Ferris Greenslet, James Russell Lowell: His Life and Work (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1905) [online text] (Detroit: Gale Research, 1969)

Edward Everett Hale, James Russell Lowell and His Friends (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1899) [online text]

Alethea Hayter, Portrait of a Friendship: Drawn from New Letters of James Russell Lowell to Sybella Lady Lyttelton, 1881-1891 (Wilton, England: Michael Russell, 1990)

Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Harvard Memorial Biographies (Cambridge: Sever and France, 1867)(2 vols.)

Leon Howard, Victorian Knight-errant: A Study of the Early Literary Career of James Russell Lowell (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1952)

M.A. DeWolfe Howe, American Bookmen 252-264 (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1898)

William Henry Hudson, Lowell & His Poetry (London: G.G. Harrap, 1911)(New York: AMS Press, reprint, 1971 )

Marjorie R. Kaufman (ed.), The Poetical Words of James Russell Lowell (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, rev. ed., 1978)

Robert Charles Le Clair, Three American Travellers in England: James Russell Lowell, Henry Adams, Henry James (Philadelphia, 1945)

Claire McGlinchee, James Russell Lowell (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1967)

F. DeWolfe Miller, Twenty-Eight Additions to the Caon of Lowell's Criticism, 4 Studies in Bibliography 205-211 (1951-1952)

E. S. Nadal, A Virginian Village, and Other Papers (New York: Macmillan, 1917)

Roy Harvey Pearce, "James Russell Lowell," in Roy Harvey Pearce, The Continuity of American Poetry (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1961)

William Lyon Phelps, Howells, James, Bryant and Other Essays (Port Washington, New York: Kennikat Press, reprint, 1965)(1924)

Gustav Pollak, International Perspective in Criticism: Goethe, Grillparzer, Sainte-Beuve, Lowell (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1914)

Horace Elisha Scudder, James Russell Lowell: A Biography (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1901)(New York: AMS Press, 1974, reprint, 1974)(2 vols.)

Herbert F. Smith (ed.), Literary Criticism of James Russell Lowell (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1969)

Charles Oran Stewart, Lowell and France (Nashville, Tennessee: Vanderbilt University Press, 1951)

Francis H. Underwood, The Poet and the Man: Recollections and Appreciations of James Russell Lowell (Boston: Lee & Shepard, 1893) [online text]

__________________, James Russell Lowell: A Biographical Sketch (Boston: J.R. Osgood and Company, 1882)(1881) [online text]

Arthur Voss, "Backgrounds of Lowell's Satire in The Biglow Papers, 23 New England Quarterly 47-64 (March 1950)

Edward Wagenknecht, James Russell Lowell: Portrait of a Many-sided Man (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971)

Hyatt H. Waggoner, "James Russell Lowell," in Hyatt H. Waggoner, American Poets from Puritans to the Present (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1968)

Thomas Wortham (ed.), James Russell Lowell's The Biglow Papers (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1977)

George Wurfl, Lowell's Debt to Goethe: A Study of Literary Influence (State College, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State College Studies, 1954)

[Source: Edward Waldo Emerson, The Early Years of the Saturday Club 1855-1870
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1918)(pg. 72)]

Rufus Wilmot Griswold, The Poets and Poetry
of America
(New York: James Miller, Publisher, 1872)