Thomas Buchanan Read was an American poet and portrait painter.

Biography

Read was born in Chester County, Pennsylvania

Chester County, Pennsylvania

-State parks:*French Creek State Park*Marsh Creek State Park*White Clay Creek Preserve-Demographics:As of the 2010 census, the county was 85.5% White, 6.1% Black or African American, 0.2% Native American or Alaskan Native, 3.9% Asian, 0.0% Native Hawaiian, 1.8% were two or more races, and 2.4% were...

 on March 12, 1822.

Read wrote a prose romance, The Pilgrims of the Great St. Bernard, and several books of poetry,
including The New Pastoral, The House by the Sea, Sylvia, and A Summer Story

A Summer Story

A Summer Story is a 1988 British drama film directed by Piers Haggard, with the script written by Penelope Mortimer, and starring James Wilby, Imogen Stubbs and Susannah York. In 1922, a man recalls the love affair he enjoyed with a woman before the First World War. The film is based on the John...

. Some of the shorter pieces included in these, e.g., "Sheridan's Ride," http://www.sonofthesouth.net/union-generals/sheridan/poem-sheridans-ride.htm "Drifting,""The Angler", "The Oath," and "The Closing Scene," have great merit. Read was briefly associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. His greatest artistic popularity took place in Florence

Florence

Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....

. Among portraits he painted were 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...

, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet and educator whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline...

, Alfred Tennyson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Elizabeth Barrett Browning was one of the most prominent poets of the Victorian era. Her poetry was widely popular in both England and the United States during her lifetime. A collection of her last poems was published by her husband, Robert Browning, shortly after her death.-Early life:Members...

, Robert Browning

Robert Browning

Robert Browning was an English poet and playwright whose mastery of dramatic verse, especially dramatic monologues, made him one of the foremost Victorian poets.-Early years:...

 and William Henry Harrison

William Henry Harrison

William Henry Harrison was the ninth President of the United States , an American military officer and politician, and the first president to die in office. He was 68 years, 23 days old when elected, the oldest president elected until Ronald Reagan in 1980, and last President to be born before the...

. Read died from injuries sustained in a carriage accident, which weakened him and led him to contract pneumonia

Pneumonia

Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...

while on shipboard returning to America.

Literary works

• Poems. 1847
• The Female Poets of America With Portraits, Biographical Notices, and Specimens of Their Writings. 1849
• Lays and Ballads 1849
• Thoraren the Skald. 1850
• The Stolen Child. 1850
• Edward A. Brackett's Marble Group of the Shipwrecked Mother and Child. 1852
• The Pilgrim's of the Great St. Bernard. 1853
• The New Pastoral. 1855
• The House by the Sea. A Poem. 1855
• Sylvia, or, The Last Shepherd An Eclogue, and Other Poems. 1857
• Rural Poems. 1857
• James L. Claghorn, Esq. 1860
• Sheridan's Ride. 1864
• The Descent of the Eagle. 1865
• The Soldier's Friend. 1865
• The Eagle and the Vulture. 1866
• The Poetical Works of Thomas Buchanan Read: Complete in Three Volumes. 1867

External links