Richard Henry Stoddard was an American critic and poet.

Biography

Richard Henry Stoddard was born on July 2, 1825, in Hingham, Massachusetts

Hingham, Massachusetts

Hingham is a town in northern Plymouth County on the South Shore of the U.S. state of Massachusetts and suburb in Greater Boston. The United States Census Bureau 2008 estimated population was 22,561...

. His father, a sea-captain, was wrecked and lost on one of his voyages while Richard was a child, and the lad went in 1835 to New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 with his mother, who had married again. He attended the public schools of that city. He became a blacksmith

Blacksmith

A blacksmith is a person who creates objects from wrought iron or steel by forging the metal; that is, by using tools to hammer, bend, and cut...

 and later an iron moulder, reading much poetry at the same time. His talents brought him into contact with young men interested in literature, notably with Bayard Taylor

Bayard Taylor

Bayard Taylor was an American poet, literary critic, translator, and travel author.-Life and work:...

, who had just published his Views Afoot. In 1849 he gave up his industrial trades and began to write for a living. He contributed to the Union Magazine, the Knickerbocker Magazine

The Knickerbocker

The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, was a literary magazine of New York City, founded by Charles Fenno Hoffman in 1833, and published until 1865 under various titles, including:...

, Putnam's Monthly Magazine and the New York Evening Post. In 1853 Nathaniel Hawthorne

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American novelist and short story writer.Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in 1804 in the city of Salem, Massachusetts to Nathaniel Hathorne and the former Elizabeth Clarke Manning. His ancestors include John Hathorne, a judge during the Salem Witch Trials...

 helped him to secure the appointment of inspector of customs of the Port of New York. He kept this job until 1870.

From 1870 to 1873, he was confidential clerk to George B. McClellan

George B. McClellan

George Brinton McClellan was a major general during the American Civil War. He organized the famous Army of the Potomac and served briefly as the general-in-chief of the Union Army. Early in the war, McClellan played an important role in raising a well-trained and organized army for the Union...

 in the New York dock department, and from 1874 to 1875 city librarian of New York. He was literary reviewer for the New York World (1860–1870); one of the editors of Vanity Fair; editor of the Aldine (1869–1874), and literary editor of the Mail and the Mail and Express (1880–1903). He died in New York on May 12, 1903.

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. His wife, Elizabeth Drew Stoddard

Elizabeth Drew Stoddard

Elizabeth Drew Stoddard, née Barstow , was a United States poet and novelist-Biography:Elizabeth Stoddard was born Elizabeth Drew Barstow in the small coastal town of Mattapoisett, Massachusetts. She studied at Wheaton Seminary, Norton, Massachusetts...

 was also a novelist.

Musical settings

His 1857 poem "Roses and Thorns", in a Russian translation by Aleksey Pleshcheyev, was set for voice and piano by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Russian: Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский ; often "Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky" in English. His names are also transliterated "Piotr" or "Petr"; "Ilitsch", "Il'ich" or "Illyich"; and "Tschaikowski", "Tschaikowsky", "Chajkovskij"...

 as "Legend", No. 5 from "Sixteen Songs for Children", Op. 54. The song, in turn, was the basis of Anton Arensky

Anton Arensky

Anton Stepanovich Arensky -Biography:Arensky was born in Novgorod, Russia. He was musically precocious and had composed a number of songs and piano pieces by the age of nine...

's Variations on a Theme by Tchaikovsky

Variations on a Theme by Tchaikovsky (Arensky)

Variations on a Theme by Tchaikovsky, Op. 35a, a piece for string orchestra by Anton Arensky, started out as the slow movement of his String Quartet No. 2 in A minor, Op. 35. It was written in 1894, the year after the death of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, in a tribute to that composer...

, Op. 35a, for string orchestra.

As editor

• 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
  Rufus Wilmot Griswold
  Rufus Wilmot Griswold was an American anthologist, editor, poet, and critic. Born in Vermont, Griswold left home when he was 15 years old. He worked as a journalist, editor, and critic in Philadelphia, New York City, and elsewhere. He built up a strong literary reputation, in part due to his 1842...
  
  's The Poets and Poetry of America
  The Poets and Poetry of America
  The Poets and Poetry of America was a popular anthology of American poetry collected by American literary critic and editor Rufus Wilmot Griswold...
  
  (1872)
• Female Poets of America (1874)
• The Bric-a-Brac Series, in 10 vols (1874–1876)
• English Verse, in 5 vols edited with WJ Linton (1883)
• four editions of Poe
  Edgar Allan Poe
  Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
  
  's works, with a memoir (1872–1894)

As poet

• Footprints (1849), privately printed and afterwards suppressed by the author
• Poems (1852)
• Adventures in Fairyland (1853)
• Town and Country (1857)
• The Story of Little Red Riding Hood
  Little Red Riding Hood
  Little Red Riding Hood, also known as Little Red Cap, is a French fairy tale about a young girl and a Big Bad Wolf. The story has been changed considerably in its history and subject to numerous modern adaptations and readings....
  
  (1864)
• Songs of Summer (1857)
• The King's Bell (1862), one of his most popular narrative poems
• Abraham Lincoln
  Abraham Lincoln
  Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
  
  : A Horatian Ode (1865)
• The Book of the East (1867)
• Poems (1880), a collective edition
• The Lion's Cub, with Other Verse (1890)

Prose

• Life, Travels and Books of Alexander von Humboldt
  Alexander von Humboldt
  Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander Freiherr von Humboldt was a German naturalist and explorer, and the younger brother of the Prussian minister, philosopher and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt...
  
  (1860)
• Under the Evening Lamp (1892), essays dealing mainly with the modern English poets
• Recollections Personal and Literary (1903), edited by Ripley Hitchcock
  Ripley Hitchcock
  Ripley Hitchcock, born James Ripley Wellman Hitchcock, was a prominent American editor. He edited the works of Rudyard Kipling, Arthur Conan Doyle, Zane Grey, Joel Chandler Harris, Stephen Crane and Theodore Dreiser.-Biography:...
  
  

External links