Longfellow Redux

Book excerpt: "Longfellow turns 200 in 2007, and the time has come to take another look at the most popular poet America has ever produced. Christoph Irmscher's new book dispenses with the modern prejudice against Longfellow as the mere purveyor of literary comfort food. By examining Longfellow's unpublished papers alongside letters written by his fans at home and abroad, Irmscher offers a view of the poet's intense connection with his audience. In chapters about Longfellow's idea of authorship, his travels, and his translations, Irmscher shows that the cosmopolitan Longfellow saw literature as a transnational conversation that also crosses social and linguistic boundaries." "Longfellow Redux is the first book-length study in several decades to cover Longfellow's entire body of work and its many contexts (personal, social, literary, and historical). It contains numerous illustrations, including previously unpublished pencil sketches by Longfellow himself."--BOOK JACKET.