Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born Feb. 27, 1807 in Portland, Maine. His mother was Zilpah Wadsworth, daughter of the Revolutionary War general, Peleg Wadsworth, and his father was Stephen Longfellow, a Harvard educated lawyer. Longfellow began his education at three years of age at a "dame school," an old-fashioned daycare that included basic schooling. He began attending Portland Academy at age six and enrolled at Bowdoin College in Brunswick Maine as a sophomore at age fifteen. Upon graduating in 1825, Longfellow was offered a newly established position as professor of modern languages at Bowdoin which was contingent upon that he study abroad for three years. He returned having mastered French, Spanish, and Italian as well as a beginning knowledge of German. Longfellow's first publications were textbooks created for his classes, a total of five were published by 1833.

In 1831, Longfellow married Mary Storer Potter. Three years later he was given a professorship at Harvard College. Again, the position required travel to Europe to study German literature and language. Six months into their journey, Mary miscarried and the complications led to her death a few weeks later. In spite of his grief, Longfellow continued his trip across Europe. In 1835, his first book, Outre-Mer: A Pilgrimage Beyond the Sea, a collection of twenty-six European travel sketches, was published. A year later while in Switzerland, Longfellow met Fanny Appleton, a woman he would court for seven years before their marriage in July 1843. Longfellow had been a boarder at the Craigie House in Cambridge, and as a wedding gift, Fanny's father bought the place for them. They raised six children and lived out rest of their lives there.

Longfellow's second prose work, Hyperion, was published in 1839 and drew upon his European and some autobiographical experiences. His first volume of poems, Voices of the Night, appeared within the same year. Ballads and Other Poems, published in 1841, contained many works that would contribute to his fame, including "The Wreck of Hesperus," "The Village Blacksmith," and "Excelsior." A year following, Longfellow would spend six months in Europe. Upon his return he published Poems on Slavery, which described his opposition to slavery and reflected on the Amistad revolt that occurred the previous year.

Longfellow's second book of poems, The Belfry of Bruges and Other Poems, in 1845, included two antiwar poems, "The Arsenal at Springfield" and "The Occultation of Orion." Two years later, Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie, was published which increased his public popularity as a narrative poet. His final work of fiction was published in 1849, Kavanagh: A Tale. In 1850, The Seaside and the Fireside came about which included themes like the sea, family, and Longfellow's Maine-born knowledge of shipbuilding. In 1854, Longfellow left Harvard to pursue his poetry exclusively. The results were The Song of Hiawatha (1855) and The Courtship of Miles Standish (1858). Also, Tales of a Wayside Inn was published in 1863 and included the famous poem, "Paul Revere's Ride."

On July 9, 1861, Longfellow's wife accidentally set her dress on fire and was fatally burned despite Longfellow's efforts which resulted in his own severe injuries. Eighteen years later he wrote what some critics consider his best work, "The Cross of Snow," a sonnet about his wife, Fanny. Longfellow died on March 24, 1882 in the Craigie House.

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Articles About Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

The Longfellow House	February 5, 2007
He was a young 30-year-old professor about to start his teaching career at Harvard. So it was that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow knocked at the door of 105 Brattle Street in Cambridge, MA to see the widow Craigie about a room to rent.