Ye Old Reading Room

-- By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow --  The midnight ride of Paul Revere delivered the news that the U.S. Revolutionary War was beginning, and that hostile British troop enforcements were beginning their military invasion of the American colonies. Longfellow commemorated the historic act with this poem, first published in The Atlantic Monthly in January 1861. In Longfellow's poetry collection, T...

-- By Walt Whitman -- This memorial poem for Abraham Lincoln was published less than 7 months after his death. Whitman and Lincoln never met, but Whitman accounts in his writings that he saw the President many times, even in the same room some of those times. Unlike yesterdays reading , Oration for Abraham Lincoln By Frederick Douglass, Whitman had unwavering admiration for the President in every...

-- By Frederick Douglass -- Eleven years after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass delivered this speech at the unveiling of the first Lincoln Memorial statue in Washington D.C. (The famous Lincoln Memorial Building was later constructed between 1914 and 1922. 150 years later this oration helps give a lens into the true contemporary view of President Lincoln, an insight that d...

-- By William Butler Yeats -- Also known as W.B. Yeats, he was a 20th century Irish poet, dramatist, and writer. 

-- By John Hartley -- Hartley lived from 1839 to 1915 and published 18 compendiums of tales and lyrics. He specialized in works of the Yorkshire dialect, as you hear in this episode.  **Excuse my poor accent; read as written**

-- By Christina Rossetti --  Besides her numerous work of children's poetry and stories, Christina primarily produced poetry with a strong religious focus. 

-- By Edgar Allen Poe -- The Tell-Tale Heart was first published in the ill-fated Boston magazine The Pioneer: A Literary and Critical Magazine in 1843. Since then, it has become one of Poe's most well known narratives and was publish multiple times during Poe's short life.

-- By John Keats -- In this piece, Keats' envisions himself as the 'sod' that the nightingale watches over. Ode to a Nightingale is one of six that Keats wrote culminating in Ode to Autumn. Experts theorize, based on Keats' writings, that this ode was written between April and May 1819 under a plum tree.

-- By Christina Rossetti --  This is the title poem from Christina Rossetti's first poetry collection: Goblin Market & Other Poems, first published in 1862. 

-- By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow --  This poem was actually run in the Atlantic Souvenir Special Christmas & New Years offering issue in 1826. At that time, Longfellow was only 19 years old!

-- By Frank Stockton -- This is the most well-known story by Stockton. Born in Philadelphia in 1834, Frank Stockton did not write for adults until he was nearly 40 years old. The first or many play adaptions of The Lady and the Tiger was created by Sydney Rosenfeld in 1888. Of the numerous stage adaptions, the most famous adaption is found in The Apple Tree from 1966 by Jerry Bock.

-- By Christina Rossetti --  Last week, we read Goblin Market, the title poem from Rossetti's first collection. This week we hear a love poem from the same collection.  Happy Valentines Day!

-- By H.P. Lovecraft --  Cthulhu and Azathoth are both deity level monsters from the mind of H.P. Lovecraft.  He features and mentions both beasts in the shared universe of his writings.  Keep an ear open for many more Lovecraft readings to come. 

-- By Robert Browning --  Robert Browning's poems often explore the viewpoints and mentality of emotionally imbalanced people, and we hear an excellent exploration of that concept in Porphyria's Lover. The poem was first published in the British publication the 'Monthly Repository' in January 1836. 

-- By Christina Rossetti -- Dante Gabriel, William Michael, Maria, and Christina Rossetti were all successful writers in their lifetimes, and Dante even more so as a painter. Winter: My Secret was written by Rossetti at the age of 18. 

-- By Frederick Douglass --  After escaping from the grasp of a birth into slavery, Douglass became the most well regarded African American writer, orator, and social reformist of the 19th century, and perhaps the greatest of all time, maybe only second to Martin Luther King Jr.  Douglass escaped from slavery around the time he turned 20 year old. His last name was adopted from the poem...

-- By The Founding Fathers-- The first 10 Amendments of the United States Constitution were written at the time of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia and became known as the Bill of Rights . In a masterstroke, the founding fathers built in the capacity for the Bill of Rights to be updated, and extra Amendments be added to the document. Since the inception of the document in 1789, and it...

-- By The Founding Fathers -- The newly founded nation was held together by stitches, under the Articles of Confederation, until the ratification of the U.S. Constitution in 1788. Representatives from the states argued for months over the terms in the Constitution. James Madison had a pivotal role in the writing with his introduction of the Virginia Plan, which included the structure of the three...

-- By H.P. Lovecraft --  Lovecraft is most well known for his creation of the legendary cosmic god, Cthulhu in his short story The Call of Cthulhu. However, Lovecraft's short stories and novelizations extend far past the subject matter of his created monstrosity. H.P. Lovecraft's love of literature was nurtured by his grandfather, who introduced him to classis such as The Odyssey and One Thou...

-- By Dr. Ulysses G. Weatherly --  Dr. Weatherly earned his PhD from Cornell University in 1894. He went on to teach at Indiana University starting in 1895, before becoming a full professor in 1899 in the Department of Economics and Sociology. 

Thank you to all our listeners!  Here's a little information about the content plan for 2022. 

-- By Jacob Riis -- Born on May 3, 1849 in Ribe, Denmark, Jacob Riis would eventually work right alongside President Theodore Roosevelt. Jacob Riis emigrated to The United States in 1870, at the age of 21. At the time of his arrival the U.S. was in turmoil; the whole country reeling from the damage, loss, and displacement caused by the civil war. Riis struggled to find work for many years and boun...

-- By Edgar Allan Poe -- The Bells was published in the Sartain's Union magazine in November 1849, just one month after Poe's death. Edgar Allan Poe is perhaps the most well known 'dark' and macabre American writer to have ever lived, and his life reflected the tone of his extensive writing.  Poe was born in Boston in 1809. In 1810, his father abandoned the family, and in 1811 his mother died...

-- By Lord Alfred Tennyson -- Ring Out, Wild Bells was first published in 1850 in Tennyson's poetry collection In Memoriam. The collection was written in dedication to Tennyson's fellow student from Trinity College, the poet Arthur Hallam, who had passed from a stroke in 1833 at the age of 22.  1850, the year of this poems publication, was also the year that Tennyson was honored as Poet Laure...

-- By Robert Burns -- Auld Lang Syne is one of the most well known New Years poems, the musical tune to which the poem is set dates back to 1799. Auld Lang Syne directly translates to "old long since", referring to days and times of past.  While the poem was written by Robert Burns, it is actually based on an older Scottish folk song. Robert Burns happened to be the first to submit a written...