Tales of a Wayside Inn is a collection of poems by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The book, published in 1863, depicts a group of people at the Wayside Inn in Sudbury, Massachusetts, as each tells a story in the form of a poem. The characters telling the stories at the inn are based on real people. The compilation, which Longfellow originally wanted to title "The Sudbury Tales", proved to be popular and he issued two additional series in the 1870s.
The poems in the collection are told by a group of adults in the tavern of the Wayside Inn in Sudbury, Massachusetts, 20 miles from the poet's home in Cambridge, and a favorite resort for parties from Harvard College. The narrators are friends of the author who, though they were not named, were so plainly characterized as to be easily recognizable. Among those of wider fame are Ole Bull, the violinist, and Thomas William Parsons, the poet and translator of Dante. Each of the three parts has a prelude and a finale, and there are interludes which link together the tales and introduce the narrators. [1] The prelude for the first part begins:
"One Autumn night, in Sudbury town,
Across the meadows bare and brown,
The windows of the wayside inn
Gleamed red with fire-light..."
Longfellow undertook the large-scale project in part to combat grief over the death of his wife Fanny in 1861. [2] While writing it, he also dealt with his personal struggles during the American Civil War, including his oldest son's illnesses and injuries while serving in the Army of the Potomac. As he wrote to a friend in England, "I have been through a great deal of trouble and anxiety... However, I have managed to get a volume of poems through the press". [3] Longfellow originally intended to call the collection The Sudbury Tales, but was worried it sounded too similar to Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales . [4] As early as October 11, 1862, however, he considered the alternative title Tales of a Wayside Inn. He wrote in his journal that day: "Write a little on the Wayside Inn. A beginning only." [5]
In 1862, Longfellow visited the Wayside Inn with his friend and publisher James T. Fields. At the time, the inn was called the Red Horse Tavern and had closed after the owner, Lyman Howe, died in 1861. It would not reopen as an inn until 1897. Longfellow referred to it as "a rambling, tumble-down building". [6] He toured the building with Abigail Eaton, a relative of the Howe family, who told Longfellow the history of the building and her family. [7] Henry Ford bought the inn in 1923, restored it, and donated it to a charitable foundation. It remains as an operating inn to this day. [8]
Most of the stories were derived by Longfellow from his wide reading — many of them from the legends of continental Europe, a few from American sources. [1] The best known inclusion is the previously-published poem "Paul Revere's Ride". It also includes "The Saga of King Olaf", a poem which Longfellow started writing as early as 1856, making it the oldest in the collection. [9] While assembling the collection, he originally intended to use a poem called "Galgano", a translation he had made in 1853 from a work by Italian poet Niccolò di Giovanni Fiorentino, as the student's tale; it was replaced with "The Falcon of Ser Federigo", translated from The Decameron . [10] Fields was heavily involved with the preparation of the book, particularly in the selection of individual titles for the poems, as well as for the title of the book itself, and suggestions for rhyming words. [11] When the book was announced for publication, it was the poet's friend Charles Sumner who finally persuaded him to change the title from The Sudbury Tales to Tales of a Wayside Inn. [3]
The collection was first published on November 23, 1863, [12] with an initial print run of 15,000 copies. [6] The New York Times called the book "a pleasant fiction" and an "excellent account". [3] A second series was published in 1870, [13] and a third published in 1872–1873. Though they sold well, the latter two volumes were less popular than the first. [14]
Many of the characters in Tales of a Wayside Inn were inspired by real people: Luigi Maria Monti (the Sicilian), Daniel Treadwell (the theologian), Thomas William Parsons (the poet), Henry Wales (the student), Isaac Edrehi (the Spanish Jew), Ole Bull (the musician), and Lyman Howe (the landlord). [15]
Modern scholar Robert Gale praises the book for showing Longfellow's wide interests and knowledge of other cultures and its use of a wide variety of poetic formulas and styles such as blank verse, ballads, dactylic hexameter, octosyllabic lines, ottava rima, and iambic pentameter, including heroic couplets. He says the book "remains the best combination of narrative poems ever written by an American". [16]
In 1920, the Humane Society of Boston filmed a movie version of the "Bell of Atri" in Dedham, Massachusetts. [17] The film was used as part of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals' "Be Kind to Our Dumb Animals" campaign. [18] The film was lost in a fire at the MSPCA in 2008. [18]
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet and educator. His original works include the poems "Paul Revere's Ride", "The Song of Hiawatha", and "Evangeline". He was the first American to completely translate Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy and was one of the fireside poets from New England.
Sudbury is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. At the 2020 census, it had a population of 18,934. The town, located in Greater Boston's MetroWest region, has a colonial history.
"The Wreck of the Hesperus" is a narrative poem by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, first published in Ballads and Other Poems in 1842. It is a story that presents the tragic consequences of a skipper's pride. On an ill-fated voyage in winter, he brings his daughter aboard ship for company. The skipper ignores the advice of one of his experienced men, who fears that a hurricane is approaching. When the storm arrives, the skipper ties his daughter to the mast to prevent her from being swept overboard. She calls out to her dying father as she hears the surf beating on the shore, then prays to Christ to calm the seas. The ship crashes onto the reef of Norman's Woe and sinks; the next morning a horrified fisherman finds the daughter's body, still tied to the mast and drifting in the surf. The poem ends with a prayer that all be spared such a fate "on the reef of Norman's Woe."
The Longfellow House–Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site is a historic site located at 105 Brattle Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was the home of noted American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow for almost 50 years, and it had previously served as the headquarters of General George Washington (1775–76).
"Excelsior" is a short poem written in 1841 by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
The fireside poets – also known as the schoolroom or household poets – were a group of 19th-century American poets associated with New England. These poets were very popular among readers and critics both in the United States and overseas. Their domestic themes and messages of morality presented in conventional poetic forms deeply shaped their era until their decline in popularity at the beginning of the 20th century.
"I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" is a Christmas carol based on the 1863 poem "Christmas Bells" by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The song tells of the narrator hearing Christmas bells during the American Civil War, but despairing that "hate is strong and mocks the song of peace on earth, good will to men". After much anguish and despondency the carol concludes with the bells ringing out with resolution that "God is not dead, nor doth He sleep" and that there will ultimately be "peace on earth, good will to men".
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
"The Saga of King Olaf" is a poetic sequence by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, published in 1863 as part of his book Tales of a Wayside Inn.
"The Children's Hour" is a poem by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, first published in the September 1860 edition of The Atlantic Monthly.
Windmill Cottage is a historic house and former windmill at 144 Division Street in East Greenwich, Rhode Island. It was the home of George Washington Greene, a former American consul to Rome and historian. It was purchased for Greene by his friend, the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
"The Village Blacksmith" is a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, first published in 1840. The poem describes a local blacksmith and his daily life. The blacksmith serves as a role model who balances his job with the role he plays with his family and community. Years after its publication, a tree mentioned in the poem was cut down and part of it was made into an armchair which was then presented to Longfellow by local schoolchildren.
"A Psalm of Life" is a poem written by American writer Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, often subtitled "What the Heart of the Young Man Said to the Psalmist". Longfellow wrote the poem not long after the death of his first wife and while thinking about how to make the best of life. It was first published anonymously in 1838 before being included in a collection of Longfellow's poems the next year. Its inspirational message has made it one of Longfellow's most famous poems.
"Paul Revere's Ride" is an 1860 poem by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow that commemorates the actions of American patriot Paul Revere on April 18, 1775, although with significant inaccuracies. It was first published in the January 1861 issue of The Atlantic Monthly. It was later retitled "The Landlord's Tale" in Longfellow's 1863 collection Tales of a Wayside Inn.
The Saturday Club, established in 1855, was an informal monthly gathering in Boston, Massachusetts, of writers, scientists, philosophers, historians, and other notable thinkers of the mid-19th century.
Kavanagh is a novel by the American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
Richard Henry Dana III was an American lawyer and civil service reformer.
Alice Mary Longfellow was a philanthropist, preservationist, and the eldest surviving daughter of the American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. She is best known as "grave Alice" from her father's poem "The Children's Hour".
Homer Rogers was an American businessman and politician who served on the Boston Board of Aldermen and was the Republican nominee in the 1892 Boston mayoral election.
The Wayside Inn is a historic inn in Sudbury, Massachusetts, United States. The inn is included on the National Register of Historic Places as part of the listed Wayside Inn Historic District. It became an inn, called Howe's Tavern, in 1716, making it the oldest continuously operating inn in the United States. The Beekman Arms Inn and others make various claims towards being "continuously operating", resulting from The Wayside Inn's closure period of 1861–1897, after the death of Lyman Howe.
Tales of a Wayside Inn public domain audiobook at LibriVox