Rufus Wilmot Griswold

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Rufus Wilmot Griswold : biography

February 15, 1815 – August 12, 1857

Griswold, circa 1840

Early career and first marriage

After a brief spell as a printer’s apprentice, Griswold moved to Syracuse where, with some friends, he started a newspaper called The Porcupine. This publication purposefully targeted locals for what was later remembered as merely malicious critique.Bayless, 12–13

He moved to New York City in 1836 and, in March of that year, was introduced to 19-year-old Caroline Searles, whom he later married.Bayless, 15 He was employed as an editor for various publications in the New York area. In October, he considered running for office as a Whig but did not receive the party’s support.Bayless, 17–18 In 1837 he was licensed as a Baptist clergyman, although he never had a permanent congregation.

Griswold married Caroline on August 12, 1837,Bayless, 20 and the couple had two daughters. Following the birth of their second daughter, Griswold left his family behind in New York and moved to Philadelphia.Silverman, 213 His departure on November 27, 1840,Quinn, 350 was by all accounts abrupt, leaving his job with Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune, and his library of several thousand volumes. He joined the staff of Philadelphia’s Daily Standard and began to build his reputation as a literary critic, becoming known for his savagery and vindictiveness.

On November 6, 1842, Griswold visited his wife in New York after she had given birth to their third child, a son. Three days later, after returning to Philadelphia, he was informed that both she and the infant had died. Deeply shocked, Griswold traveled by train alongside her coffin, refusing to leave her side for 30 hours. When fellow passengers urged him to try to sleep, he answered by kissing her dead lips and embracing her, his two children crying next to him.Bayless, 64 He refused to leave the cemetery after her funeral, even after the other mourners had left, until forced to do so by a relative.Silverman, 217Bayless, 65 He wrote a long poem in blank verse dedicated to Caroline, "Five Days", which was printed in the New York Tribune on November 16, 1842.Bayless, 66 Griswold had difficulty believing she had died and often dreamed of their reunion. Forty days after her entombment, he entered her vault, cut off a lock of her hair, kissed her on the forehead and lips, and wept for several hours, staying by her side until a friend found him 30 hours later.

Anthologist and critic

Title page of the 1855 edition of [[The Poets and Poetry of America]] In 1842, Griswold released his 476-page anthology of American poetry, The Poets and Poetry of America, which he dedicated to Washington Allston.Pattee, 279 Griswold’s collection featured poems from over 80 authors,Sova, 197 including 17 by Lydia Sigourney, three by Edgar Allan Poe, and 45 by Charles Fenno Hoffman. Hoffman, a close friend, was allotted twice as much space as any other author.Pattee, 494 Griswold went on to oversee many other anthologies, including Biographical Annual, which collected memoirs of "eminent persons recently deceased", Gems from American Female Poets, Prose Writers of America, and Female Poets of America.Quinn, 350–351 Prose Writers of America, published in 1847, was prepared specifically to compete with a similar anthology by Cornelius Mathews and Evert Augustus Duyckinck.Miller, 169 The prose collection earned Griswold a rivalry with the two men, which Griswold expected. As it was being published, Griswold wrote to Boston publisher James Thomas Fields that "Young America will be rabid".Widmer, Edward L. Young America: The Flowering of Democracy in New York. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999: 121. ISBN 0-19-514062-1. In preparing his anthologies, Griswold would write to the living authors whose work he was including to ask their suggestions on which poems to include, as well as to gather information for a biographical sketch.Pattee, 391

In 1843 Griswold founded The Opal, an annual gift book that collected essays, stories, and poetry. Nathaniel Parker Willis edited its first edition, which was released in the fall of 1844.Bayless, 83 For a time, Griswold was editor of the Saturday Evening PostOberholtzer, Ellis Paxson. The Literary History of Philadelphia. Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs & Co., 1906: 298. ISBN 1-932109-45-5. and also published a collection of his own original poetry, The Cypress Wreath (1844). His poems, with titles such as "The Happy Hour of Death", "On the Death of a Young Girl", and "The Slumber of Death", emphasized mortality and mourning.Kennedy, J. Gerald. Poe, Death, and the Life of Writing. Yale University Press, 1987: 66–67. ISBN 0-300-03773-2. Another collection of his poetry, Christian Ballads and Other Poems, was published in 1844, and his nonfiction book, The Republican Court or, American Society in the Days of Washington, was published in 1854.Bayless, 234 The book is meant to cover events during the presidency of George Washington, though it mixes historical fact with apocryphal legend until one is indistinguishable from the other.Bryan, William Alfred. George Washington in American Literature 1775–1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1952: 103. During this period, Griswold occasionally offered his services at the pulpit delivering sermonsBayless, 93 and he may have received an honorary doctorate from Shurtleff College, a Baptist institution in Illinois, leading to his nickname the "Reverend Dr. Griswold".No records from the college authenticating this claim exist. Bayless, 274