Poet John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892) proved a significant contributor to American Protestant hymnody—since 1843, more than 2,100 hymnals published in the United States have included adaptations of his works—despite the fact that Whittier never considered himself a hymnist.

This book compares and contrasts Whittier's original published texts with versions adapted as hymns, exhibiting the hymnodic elements of his poetry and displaying the textual changes to Whittier's lines by hymnal editors from a variety of denominations. The work offers in-depth comparative studies of many of his poems and their resultant hymns, a catalogue of hymns-from-poems, a chronology of Whittier's life and works, notes, bibliography and index.