
Richard Henry Stoddard (1825-1903), from Recollections: Personal and literary, 1903. Courtesy Internet Archive.
Richard Henry Stoddard (July 2, 1825 - May 12, 1903) was an American poet and literary critic.
Life[]
Overview[]
Stoddard was born at Hingham, Massachusetts. He worked in a foundry, and afterwards in New York Custom House. He wrote a Life of Washington, but is chiefly known as a poet, his poetical works including Songs in Summer (1857), The King's Bell, The Lions Cub, etc.[1]
Youth[]

Stoddard as a young man. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
Stoddard was born in Hingham, Massachusetts, on 2 July 1825. He spent most of his boyhood in New York City, where he became a blacksmith and later an iron moulder.[2]
Career[]
In 1849 Stoddard gave up his trade and began to write for a living. He contributed to the Union Magazine, the Knickerbocker Magazine, Putnam's Monthly Magazine, and the New York Evening Post.
He married Elizabeth Drew (Barstow) in 1852.[2] The couple settled permanently in New York City, where they belonged to New York's vibrant, close-knit literary and artistic circles.
The couple had 3 children, 2 of whom died as infants.[3] The 3rd child, Edwin Lorimer "Lorry" Stoddard (1863-1901),[4] also wrote poetry.[5]
In 1853 Nathaniel Hawthorne helped him to secure the appointment of inspector of customs of the Port of New York.[2]
Stoddard was confidential clerk to George B. McClellan in the New York dock department in 1870-1872, and city librarian of New York in 1874-1875; literary reviewer for the New York World (1860-1870); an editor of Vanity Fair; editor of the Aldine (1869-1874), and literary editor of the Mail and Express (1880-1903).[2]
Among the numerous books that he edited are The Loves and Heroines of the Poets (1861); Melodies and Madrigals: Mostly from the old English poets (1865); The Late English Poets (1865), selections; Griswold's Poets and Poetry of America (1872) and Female Poets of America (1874); The 'Bric-a-Brac' Series, in 10 volumes (1874-1876); English Verse, in 5 volumes, edited with W.J. Linton (1883); and 4 editions of Poe's works, with a memoir (1872-1894).[2]
His wife died in New York on 1 August 1902. He died in New York on 12 May 1903.[2]
Writing[]
His original poetry includes Footprints (1849), privately printed and afterwards suppressed; Poems (1852); the juveniles, Adventures in Fairyland (1853); Town and Country (1857), and The Story of Little Red Riding Hood (1864); Songs of Summer (1857); The King's Bell (1862), a popular narrative poem; Abraham Lincoln: A Horatian ode (1865), The Book of the East (1867), Poems (1880), a collective edition; and The Lion's Cub, with other verse (1890).[2]
He also wrote Life, Travels and Books of Alexander von Humboldt (1860); Under the Evening Lamp (1892), essays dealing mainly with the modern English poets; and Recollections Personal and Literary (1903), edited by Ripley Hitchcock.[2]
More important than his critical was his poetical work, which at its best is sincere, original and marked by delicate fancy, and felicity of form; and his songs have given him a high and permanent place among American lyric poets.[2]
Recognition[]
His 1857 poem "Roses and Thorns", in a Russian translation by Aleksey Pleshcheyev, was set for voice and piano by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky as "Legend", No. 5 from "Sixteen Songs for Children", Op. 54.[6] The song, in turn, was the basis of Anton Arensky's Variations on a Theme by Tchaikovsky, Op. 35a, for string orchestra.[7]
Publications[]

Poetry[]
- Footprints (1849), privately printed and afterwards suppressed by the author
- Poems. Boston, Ticknor, Reed, & Fields, 1851 [1852].
- Town and Country; and, The voices in the shells. New York: Dix, Edwards, 1857.
- Songs of Summer. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1857.
- The King's Bell (long poem). New York, Carleton, 1863. London: Basil Montagu, Pickering, 1864.
- "Under Green Leaves": A book of rural poems. New York: Bunce & Huntington, 1865.
- Abraham Lincoln: A Horatian ode. New York: Bunce & Huntington, 1865.
- The Book of the East, and other poems. Boston: James R. Osgood, 1871.
- Poems. New York: Scribner, 1880.
- The Lion's Cub, with other verse. New York: Scribner, 1890; London: Elkin Mathews, 1891.
Non-fiction[]

- The Life, Travels and Books of Alexander von Humboldt. New York: Rudd & Carleton, 1860; London: Sampson Low, 1860.
- Personal Recollections of Lamb, Hazlitt, and others. New York: Scribner, Armstrong, 1875.
- Poets' Homes: Pen and pencil sketches of American poets and their homes. Boston: D. Lothrop, 1877.
- Nathaniel Hawthorne. New York: Scribner, 1879.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: A medley in prose and verse. New York: G.W. Harlan, 1882.
- The Life of Washington Irving. New York: Alden, 1883
- Folcroft, PA: Folcroft Library Editions, 1975.
- Under the Evening Lamp (essays dealing mainly with contemporary English poets). New York: Scribner, 1892; London: Gay & Bird, 1893.
- Recollections: Personal and literary (edited by Ripley Hitchcock; introduction by Edmund Clarence Stedman). New York: A.S. Barnes, 1903. London: Author's Syndicate, 1903; New York: AMS Press, 1971.
Juvenile[]
- Adventures in Fairyland. Boston : Ticknor, Reed, & Fields, 1853.
- The Story of Little Red Riding Hood: Told in verse (illustrated by Alfred Fredericks). New York: J.C. Gregory, 1864.
- The Story of Putnam the Brave (illustrated by Alfred Fredericks). Boston: Fields, Osgood, 1876.
Edited[]
- The Loves and Heroines of the Poets. New York: Derby & Jackson, 1861.
- The Late English Poets. New York: Routledge, 1865.
- Melodies and Madrigals: Mostly from the old English poets. New York: Bunce & Huntington, 1866.
- Rufus W. Griswold, The Poets and Poetry of America. New York, J. Miller, 1872.
- Rufus W. Griswold, The Female Poets of America. New York, J. Miller, 1873 [1874]
- Anecdote Biographies of Thackeray and Dickens. New York: Scribner, Armstrong, 1874.
- Anecdote Biography of Percy Bysshe Shelley. New York: Scribner, Armstrong, 1877.
- English Verse (edited with W.J. Linton). (5 volumes), New York: Scribner, 1883; London: Kegan Paul, 1883. Volume I, Volume II, Volume III, Volume IV, Volume V.
- Readings and Recitations from Modern Authors: Being pearls gathered from the fields of poetry and romance (edited with Elizabeth Stoddard). Chicago & New York: Belford, Clarke, 1884.
- The Works of Edgar Allan Poe (edited with an introduction & memoir by Stoddart). (6 volumes), New York: A.C. Armstrong, 1884; London: Routledge, 1896. Volume I, Volume II, Volume III, Volume IV, Volume V, Volume VI.
Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.[8]
See also[]
The Flight of Youth --- R.H. Stoddard
References[]
Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). "Stoddard, Richard Henry". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 939.. Wikisource, Web, Mar. 6, 2018.
Notes[]
- ↑ John William Cousin, "Stoddard, Richard Henry," A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London: Dent / New York: Dutton, 1910, 363. Wikisource, Web, Mar. 5, 2018.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 Britannica 1911, 25, 939.
- ↑ Elizabeth Drew Barstow Stoddard 1823-1902, Poetry Foundation. Web, Nov. 30, 2014.
- ↑ Edwin Lorimer "Lorry" Stoddard, Geni.com. Web, Nov. 30, 2014.
- ↑ A Few Verses (New York: privately published, 1902). Internet Archive, Web, Nov. 30, 2014.
- ↑ The Lied, Art Song and Choral Texts Page
- ↑ Sonic Labyrinth
- ↑ Search results = au:Richard Henry Stoddard, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Nov. 23, 2013.
External links[]
- Poems
- Richard Henry Stoddard in An American Anthology 1787-1900: "The Witches' Whelp, " "Melodies and Catches," "The Flight of Youth," "Oriental Songs," "The Lover," "Abraham Lincoln," "Adsum," "An Old Song Reversed," "Mors et Vita," "A Gazelle," "The Flight of the Arrow,"
- Richard Henry Stoddard at PoemHunter (18 poems)
- Books
- Works by Richard Henry Stoddard at Project Gutenberg
- Richard Henry Stoddard at Amazon.com
- About
- Richard Henry Stoddard in the Encyclopædia Britannica
- Richard Henry Stoddard at NNDB
- Stoddart, Richard Henry (1825-1903) at The Vault at Pfaff's
- Richard Henry Stoddard in the Cambridge History of English and American Literature
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, the 1911 Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica.. Original article is at "Stoddard, Richard Henry"
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