Richard Henry Stoddard

Author and poet.

"Recollections, Personal and Literary"

By Richard Henry Stoddard is a narrative of his life, including references to the Barstow's and his romance with Elizabeth Drew Barstow.

This book can be read on line or downloaded through Google Books

A biography from the period reads: "Few men are better known in what may be called the old New York literary group than Richard Henry Stoddard. He was born in Hingham, Mass., in July, 1825. When he was ten years of age his family removed to New York, in which city he learned the trade of an iron molder. The literary instinct was strong within him, though, and as early as 1848 he began contributing to the newspapers and periodicals of the day. He soon acquired a recognized place in the American literary world of the time, a place he has retained. He has produced a number of works, among them being included "Adventures in Fairyland," "Town and Country," "The Story of Little Red Riding Hood," "The Children in the Wood," "Putnam the Brave," "Memoir of Edgar Allan Poe," the "Bric-a-Brac," and "Sans Souci Series" of compilations and a number of volumes relating to English literature. If fault is to be found with Mr. Stoddard's work in the consideration of literary matters, it must be on the basis that he is not always in touch with the new schools of literature and has come to have creeds as to book-making; but it is admitted of him by all that he is an able essayist and critic, and that by his capable selections he has aided not a little in popularizing the best class of work in the United States. He has done much newspaper work, and is still a regular and vigorous writer for the daily press, being at the present time (1895) the literary reviewer on the New York "Mail and Express." He represents a school now passing away, which was a good one, which was conservative but which did much toward making American literature what it is. It was, at least, always a clean school and one tending to promote decent thought and action."

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