The Letters of William Cullen Bryant: Volume II, 1836-1849

by William Cullen Bryant (Editor), Thomas G. Voss (Editor)

Overview

The second volume of William Cullen Bryant's letters opens in 1836 as he has just returned to New York from an extended visit to Europe to resume charge of the New York Evening Post, brought near to failure during his absence by his partner William Leggett's mismanagement. At the period's close, Bryant has found in John Bigelow an able editorial associate and astute partner, with whose help he has brought the paper close to its greatest financial prosperity and to national political and cultural influence.Bryant's letters lf the years between show the versatility of his concern with the crucial political, social, artistic, and literary movements of his time, and the varied friendships he enjoyed despite his preoccupation with a controversial daily paper, and with the sustenance of a poetic reputation yet unequaled among Americans. As president of the New York Homeopathic Society, in letters and editorials urging widespread public parks, and in his presidency of the New York Society for the Abolition of the Punishment of Death, he gave attention to public health, recreation, and order. He urged the rights of labor, foreign and religious minorities, and free African Americans; his most powerful political effort of the period was in opposition to the spread of slavery through the conquest of Mexico. An early commitment to free trade in material goods was maintained in letters and editorials, and to that in ideas by his presidency of the American Copyright Club and his support of the efforts of Charles Dickens and Harriet Martineau to secure from the United States Congress and international copyright agreement.Included here are letters to prominent Americans, many of them his close friends, such as the two Danas, Bancroft, Cole, Cooper, Dewey, Dix, Downing, Durand, Forrest, Greenough, Irving, Longfellow, Simms, Tilden, Van Buren, and Weir. His letters to the Evening Post recounting his observations and experiences during travels abroad and in the South, West, and Northeast of the United States, which were copied widely in other newspapers and praised highly by many of their subscribers, are here made available to the present-day reader.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780823209927
Publisher:	Fordham University Press
Publication date:	01/01/1977
Pages:	568
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.12(h) x (d)
Lexile:	1440L (what's this?)

About the Author

William Cullen Bryant (Edited By)
William Cullen Bryant II, a collateral descendant, earned his Ph.D. at Columbia University. He taught at his alma mater and at the Universityof Iowa, Fordham University, and the City Universityof New York. He widely traveled as a naval officer, teacher, and educational advisor. He lived in Garrison, NY.

Thomas G. Voss (Edited By)
Thomas G. Voss earned his Ph.D. at the Universityof Wisconsin. He has taught at the Catholic Universityof America, and he was a Fulbright Professor in Norway. He was President of Tusculum College and the Universityof Charleston.

Editorial Reviews

. . . Faithfully follows the excellent editorial plan . . . Recommended.

Choice

. . . Follows the same outstanding editorial format . . . The literary and historical value of these letters is considerable; together with the personal and business letters, they give us further evidence of Bryant's varied personality, his many interests, and his invincible integrity.

Resources for American Literary Study

This book merits extraordinarily high praise and close scrutiny.

Journalism History

. . . The editors have maintained the high standard set in the first . . . Indeed, some of the notes . . . are really short essays on the subjects . . . there is much in this well-prepared volume to interest the student of literature.

American Literature

. . . A splendid edition . . . superbly edited. . . Such fundamental, primary scholarship, done as in this case meticulously and thoroughly, is essential to the fullest consideration of any author's achievement.

American Literary Scholarship

This publication . . . of all of Bryant's letters is the result . . . of honest and intelligent scholarly labour . . . . the letters [are] carefully transcribed, fully annotated, and well indexed . . . obscure writers and ephemeral journals [are] identified . . .The . . . reader can easily distinguish between large type an small, text and notes, and take what he wants, secure in the knowledge that all reasonable questions will be answered, even if a large number of unasked ones are also replied to . . . What we have here, then, are the valuable materials for a reconstruction of a live and a culture that are well worth recapturing."

The Times Literary Supplement

. . . Of great worth . . . Every letter seems to have nuggets.

Yankee