1881 Biography and Works - JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

James Russell Lowell (1819-1891), was an American poet, critic, and editor. He was influential in revitalizing the intellectual life of New England in the mid-19th century. Educated at Harvard, he abandoned law for literature. In 1843 he started a literary magazine, the Pioneer, which failed after two issues. The next year Lowell married Maria White, an ardent abolitionist and liberal, who encouraged him in his work.

Lowell's Poems, "A Fable for Critics", "The Vision of Sir Launfal", and "The Bigelow Papers" brought him considerable notice as a poet and critic. The best remembered of these are "The Bigelow Papers", political and social lampoons written in Yankee dialect, which established his reputation as a satirist and a wit. The first of these two series of verses expressed opposition to the Mexican War, and the second supported the cause of the North in the Civil War. In 1855, Lowell became professor of modern languages at Harvard, a position he held until 1876. In addition to teaching, he served as first editor of the Atlantic Monthly and later of the North American Review. In his later writings he turned to scholarship and criticism. Collections of his essays and literary studies appeared as "Fireside Travels", "Among My Books", and "My Study Windows".

Life and Works of James Russell Lowell!

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