Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
1807–1882 · American poet and Harvard professor, author of Paul Revere's Ride, Evangeline and The Song of Hiawatha.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born in 1807 in Portland, Maine, then part of Massachusetts. He attended Bowdoin College, where Nathaniel Hawthorne was a classmate, and after graduating he traveled in Europe for three years to study languages so that he could teach them. He became a professor of modern languages at Bowdoin and, from 1836, at Harvard. His first wife, Mary, died during a journey in Europe in 1835; his second wife, Fanny Appleton, died in 1861 after her dress caught fire, and he was badly burned trying to save her. Longfellow's poems, with their clear rhythms and stories from history and legend, made him the most popular American poet of his century. They include The Wreck of the Hesperus, The Village Blacksmith, Evangeline (1847), about Acadian lovers separated when the British expelled their people, The Song of Hiawatha (1855), drawing on Ojibwe legends, The Courtship of Miles Standish and Paul Revere's Ride (1860). He also translated Dante's Divine Comedy. He died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1882.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is also an author in the library: author page and works.
Faith: Faith not well documented. Source: Wikipedia
Key dates
- 1807 Born in Portland, Maine
- 1836 Professor at Harvard
- 1847 Evangeline published
- 1855 The Song of Hiawatha published
- 1860 Paul Revere's Ride written
- 1861 Death of his wife Fanny
- 1882 Dies in Cambridge, Massachusetts
See where they lived
Official museums and historic homes we don’t run. Follow each site’s link for learning resources and current visiting information.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow raised his family and wrote many of his poems at this house in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The National Park Service provides classroom activities, primary sources, and field-trip information.
Fun facts
- As a boy he spent his summers on his grandfather's farm in Hiram, Maine. (Source: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Wikipedia))
- After his face was injured in a fire he stopped shaving, and his beard became his trademark. (Source: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Wikipedia))
Record-breaker
Firsts and records, worded as the sources give them ("first known", "at the time").
- He was the first American to translate the whole of Dante's Divine Comedy. (Source: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Wikipedia))
Read about them
Grades 3–5
- Paul Revere's Ride · In the library
Grades 6–8
- The Song of Hiawatha · In the library
More lives
Edwin A. Abbott · Jane Addams · Louisa May Alcott · Hans Christian Andersen · Jane Austen · Honoré de Balzac