Ye Old Reading Room

-- By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow -- 1863  Snowflakes carries quite a gloomy and melancholy tone, yet vividly accurate depiction of the winter cold.    Longfellow wrote this piece less than to years after the tragic death of his wife. Frances Longfellow passed the morning after a burning accident; her dress caught fire while she was trying to seal a letter with wax. Longfellow was sc...

-- By Oscar Wilde -- Oscar Wilde lived a bright burning, short life. He was born in 1854 and passed away in the new century on November 30, 1900. During his 30's he had success in a number of avenues of writing  including poetry, short stories, and novels. However, he is most well known for his stage plays, most prevalently The Importance of Being Earnest. Almost all of Oscar Wilde's stage pl...

-- By Ella Wheeler Wilcox -- Ella Wheeler was born on November 5, 1850 in Johnstown, Wisconsin. From a young age, Ella amused herself with literature, the likes of Shakespeare, and by the age of 8 began writing poetry, and was published by the age of 13. She was inspired to submit her first poem after her family lost their subscription to The New York Mercury. She submitted a poem for the sole pur...

-- By Christina Rossetti -- This poem was included in two collections by Christina Rossetti. First, a collection named Time Flies: A Reading Diary in 1885 that offered daily reflective poems and written meditations. In the final years of her life, Rossetti wrote a number of daily meditation, devotional books including The Face of the Deep and Sing-Song. Christmastide was again featured in Verses,...

-- By O. Henry -- William Sydney Porter, best known by his pseudonym O. Henry was born on September 11, 1862 in North Carolina. At the time of his birth, the Southern Confederacy State was a contentious battleground in the American Civil War. In his youth, Porter was an avid reader, but originally had taken a path away from the writer he would become and became a licensed pharmacist at the age of...

-- By Emily Dickenson -- Emily Dickenson wrote over 1,800 poems in her lifetime, none of which were titled. Of those 1,800 only 10 were published during her lifetime. It was not until, upon her death in 1886, her younger sister Lavinia found a cache of Emily's work. Emily's first collection of poetry was published four yeas after her death in 1890. A complete collection of her work was not pu...

-- By Christina Rossetti -- While Rossetti's famous poem is often known by the first line, In the Bleak Midwinter was originally published under the title A Christmas Carol. The poem was first published in Scribner's Monthly in 1872 before Rossetti republished it in the 1875 collection Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress and Other Poems. Gustav Holst was the first to write music for In the B...

-- By John Milton --    During his lifetime John Milton received international renowned for his English, Latin, and Italian poetry. The son of John Milton the musical composer, John Milton the poet was born on Bread Street in London on December 9, 1608. He attended St. Paul's School in London, where he began his studies in Greek and Latin, before continuing his studies at Christ's Colleg...

-- By E.E. Cummings -- Edward Estlin Cummings was born October 14th, 1894 and was a prolific American writer through poetry, books, stage plays, essays, and TWO autobiographical novels. Cummings was one of the pioneers of modern free-form poetry including the use of irregular lowercase spellings as a vessel of artistic expression.  During the First World War Cummings enlisted into the Ambulan...

-- By Francis Pharcellus Church --  In September of 1897, Eight-year-old Virginia O’Hanlon wrote a letter to the editor of New York’s Sun and a response was printed as an editorial. The editorial response, written by Francis Pharcellus Church, has since become history’s most reprinted newspaper editorial in over 50 languages. Virginia gained a minor level of national celebrity. She went on to...

-- By Robert Southwell -- Robert Southwell was a Jesuit priest born in 1561 and ordained in 1584. His extensive studies began in 1576 and would take him from Douai in France to Paris to Rome where he completed his studies.  In 1584 Queen Elizabeth began to enact sanctions on Catholic believers and clergy. Upon his own request, Southwell was sent as a missionary to England and arrived in July...

-- By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born on February 27, 1807 in Portland, Maine while the area was still a part of Massachusetts. Henry was the second of 8 children and his mother was the descendent of Richard Warren, a passenger of the Mayflower. He studied at both Bowdoin College and Harvard College.  At the age of 13, he published his first poem in the Portl...

-- By Christina Rossetti -- While most known for Christmas carols In the Bleak Midwinter and Love Came Down at Christmas, Christina Rossetti was quite a prolific 19th century English poet.   In the Bleak Midwinter was written in 1871 but was only arranged by composer Gustav Holst 35 years later in 1906.  Rossetti was born in London on December 5, 1830. She was first published in April 18...

-- By Anne Brontë -- Anne Brontë was born January 17, 1820 to Maria Branwell and Patrick Brontë. The youngest member of the Brontë family, Anne and her sisters Charlotte and Emily all achieved great literary success in both novels and poetry during their lifetimes.  Anne Brontë is most well known for her novel: Wuthering Heights. The book was her second publication and released in December 18...

-- By Clement Clarke Moore -- This poem, commonly retitled after the first line, was anonymously written by Clement Clarke Moore in 1823 at 44 years olde. The poem was first published in the Sentinel newspaper in Troy, New York after being submitted my one of Moore's friends.  Throughout his career Moore published a number of pamphlets and other literature, often outspoken about political iss...

-- By 'The Founding Fathers' -- The United States Declaration of Independence was drafted by the Second Continental Congress on July 4, 1766; now honored as Independence day, a federal, nationally celebrated holiday.  The document was taken as a declaration of war by the 13 colonies against Great Britain. The rest is history...