Eight (8) Books By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1885. This is an eight-volume set of books by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, one of America's leading poets of the nineteenth century. Longfellow (1807 - 1882) was an American poet and educator, and some of his most famous poems include "Paul Revere's Ride", "The Song of Hiawatha," and "Evangeline". He was the first American to completely translate Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy and one of the Fireside Poets, a group of 19th-century American poets situated mostly in New England. Longfellow was born in Portland , Massachusetts (now Portland, Maine); he graduated from Bowodin College and became a professor there, and later at Harvard College, after studying in Europe. He retired from teaching in 1854 to focus on his writing, and he lived the remainder of his life in the Revolutionary War headquarters of George Washington in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His first wife, Mary Potter, died in 1835 after a miscarriage, and his second wife, Frances Appleton, died in 1861 after sustaining burns when her dress caught fire. That's also why Longfellow wore a beard later in life - he sustained burns on his face trying to save her. After her death, Longfellow had difficulty writing poetry for a time and focused on translating works from foreign languages, Longfellow died n 1882. There eight books were published in 1885 by Houghton Mifflin through the Riverside Press in Cambridge, Mass., and they were divided into two sets: four volumes of "The Poetical Works Of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and four volumes of "The Poetical Works Of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Second Series ("Part Second"). The books all have five revised bands, six compartments with gilt titles on red and maroon labels and gilt decorations on the spines, double gilt-fillet rules on polished calf covers, marbled endpapers, all the top edges are gilt, and they are bound by Tout. The first book of the first series has the owner's bookplate on the front paste-down, a frontis portrait of Longfellow and 318 pages of text, including Poems on Slavery; the second book of the series has 282 pages, including The Song of Hiawatha and The Courtship of Miles Standish; the third book has two parts: The divine Tragedy in 159 pages and the Golden Legend in 122 pages, and the fourth book has 343 pages of poetry, including The Wayside Inn and Paul Revere's Ride. The first book of the second series runs from page 321 to 598, and includes Evangeline, By The Seaside and By The Fireside; the second book of the Second Series runs form 283 to page 557 and includes Prometheus and The Hanging of the Crane; the third book in this series starts with the Golden Legend and runs from 123 to page 215 and the second part of this book includes The New-England Tragedies and runs from vii to xvi and then from page 5 to 186, and the last book in the Second Series runs from 345 to page 378 and includes Judas Maccabaeus and Sonnets. The books all measure 8 x 5 3/8 in. wide, the bindings are tight, except for a weak hinge in the front of the first volume of the first series (it is nearly detached). The rest have strong hinges and solid gutters. The pages and text are clean, with fading on the spines, rubbing at the heels and crowns, light rubbing on some of the tips, and a couple of the tips are slightly turned in. Overall an attractive set that includes the highlights of Longfellow's poetry. #10 #7026