Last Word on Longfellow--My Last Word, That Is

In the summer of 2002, I got a phone call from the editor of Signet Classics asking if I would be interested in writing a new preface to a book that had originally been printed in 1964, Evangeline and Selected Tales and Poems.  I said yes, of course--the pay was good and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow fell generally under the umbrella of subjects that interest me, American poetry and literary history.

But Longfellow had never been a favorite of mine--because of the dip in his reputation during most of the 20th century, not because I had ever read enough of his work to draw my own conclusions.  I thought it would be fun to read in bulk one of the most prolific and popular poets of his generation, and I was right.  Great fun, in fact.

It was so much fun that I continued to research his life and to read his poetry until 2016, when I couldn't resist writing the book that was published two weeks ago, Longfellow in Love:  Passion and Tragedy in the Life of the Poet (McFarland & Company Publishers).  It wasn't sixteen years of continuous work because I took six years to write (and then rewrite) a long memoir, but that still leaves more than a decade of work on a poet who got more interesting to me by the year.  And as I got involved in Longfellow studies after I had retired from forty-odd years as an American Literature professor, I came to think of the work as my "end of life project."  And with its publication I have felt an exquisite joy because I couldn't be sure at any point in the many years of work that I would be able to see it through to publication--to find my subject, my voice, my publisher.  And as I got older every year and the work resisted its final form, I truly did wonder if I would live long enough to complete it.

I won't try to trace all the ups and downs of the many years of work, but I will say that originally I had hoped for about a 100,000 word book.  When I finished it, however, I didn't like the end at all, so I rewrote it until it came to nearly double the original size.  When I tried out the new length on a few publishers, it was far too long--if they were interested at all in a book about another dead white man from the 19th century.  I picked away at the manuscript until it came in at 140,000 words, which is the size editor Layla Milholen at McFarland saw the manuscript in November 2017.  She liked the book, but asked if I could trim another 20,000 words.  I managed 15,000 and we struck a deal.  There was a great deal of additional work to be done--permissions, manuscript format, page proofs, chapter notes, bibliography, and index--but all that was fast-tracked and the book was released on August 9, 2018.

One's goals should always be beyond what a person thinks he can accomplish.  Mine have always been--a Ph.D. in American Studies, and three books that have made small contributions to American literary history--on an obscure 18th-century poet, David Humphreys; on the popular 20th-century poet and Dante translator, John Ciardi; and now on the once-sainted 19th-century poet (and Dante translator), Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.  Each book presented enormous obstacles that I eventually learned how to overcome.  Every step of the way I persevered, a quality I learned that is far more important than talent.  It has been a great journey, and if I am lucky, there may yet be a little more to accomplish.  I just came across a C.S. Lewis quotation:  "You are never too old to set a new goal, to dream a new dream."  I think he may be on to something there.