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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[]

RHStoddard

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[]

Non-fiction[]

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[]


Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.[8]

See also[]

The_Flight_of_Youth_---_R.H._Stoddard

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[]

  1. 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. 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 Britannica 1911, 25, 939.
  3. Elizabeth Drew Barstow Stoddard 1823-1902, Poetry Foundation. Web, Nov. 30, 2014.
  4. Edwin Lorimer "Lorry" Stoddard, Geni.com. Web, Nov. 30, 2014.
  5. A Few Verses (New York: privately published, 1902). Internet Archive, Web, Nov. 30, 2014.
  6. The Lied, Art Song and Choral Texts Page
  7. Sonic Labyrinth
  8. Search results = au:Richard Henry Stoddard, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Nov. 23, 2013.

External links[]

Poems
Books
About

 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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