Ye Old Reading Room

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-- 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 bounced around the country. Yet, he eventually fell into journalism; chronicling the lives of immigrants, both rich and poor. 

In 1895, Riis worked alongside Theodore Roosevelt. At that time, the young Roosevelt was President to the New York City Police Commissioner Board. The two became friends for life on account of their shared sense of justice; Riis had a reputation for "muckraker" journalism.  

-- 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. He was taken in by the Allan family in Richmond, Virgina, but was never officially adopted. He attended the University of Virginia, but was forced to drop out over a lack of funding for his tuition. After leaving the University of Virginia, he enlisted in the army and was enlisted when he published his first work: Tamerlane and Other Poems. The authorship of that poem simply read in the byline "by a Bostonian". Poe then went on to the military academy, West Point, where he failed out before graduation. It was finally then that Poe began to seriously pursue a career in writing. 

It was in 1845 with the publication and popularity of The Raven that Poe became a household name. Sadly, Poe was burdened by alcoholism which assumedly contributed to his demise in 1849 at the age of 40. Poe's death is shrouded in mystery. He was found deliriously walking the streets of Baltimore in another man's clothes. He was taken to Washington Medical College where he passed the next morning on October 7, 1849. 

-- 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 Laureate of the United Kingdom. The position carries the expectation that the title holder will write poetry to commemorate significant holidays and occasions for the country and crown. The title of Poet Laureate has since been held by other writers such as Cecil Day-Lewis, Carol Ann Duffy, and, currently, Simon Armitage. Lord Alfred Tennyson began writing poems as a teenage, with his first publication at the age of 17, and continued the practice as Poet Laureate until his death at age 83 in 1892. 

-- 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 version to the Scots Music Museum in 1788, thus entering the song into the historical record. Auld Lang Syne was written in the Scottish language and thus easily gained popularity in English. The song has a melancholy nostalgia, and while mostly sang at New Years, it is also applicable to, and repeated, at graduations, funerals, or the conclusion of large celebrations.   

-- 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 scorched while trying to put out the fire and his signature beard, later in life, was the result of not being able to shave due to his burnt face. He as even unable to attend Frances' funeral while hospitalized for his own injuries. 

Longfellow never emotionally recovered; it would take him 18 years before writing the sonnet The Cross of Snow to commemorate her death. Shortly after publishing Snowflakes, Longfellow took up the task of translating the English version of Dante's Inferno.  

-- 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 plays are considered comedies satirizing the Victorian Era. 

Oscar Wilde had a salacious life and was wrapped up in two lawsuits, alleging sexual impropriety, that ultimately led to his exile, a deep depression, and his untimely death. In both trials he was accused of homosexuality and convicted as such. The final years of Oscar Wilde's life were spent in exile after release from Pentonville Prison in North London in 1897. In October of 1900 Wilde fell ill and ultimately succumbed to meningitis on November 30, 1900.   

-- 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 purpose of receiving a copy of the paper in the event that her submission was published. 

In 1884, Ella Wheeler married Robert Wilcox. The two were married for over 30 years and over that time built many houses and had mutual interests in Theosophy and Spiritualism. Robert Wilcox passed in 1916. Ella Wilcox wrote The Year in 1917, just two years before her death in 1919. 

-- 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, the last poetry collection that Rossetti published during her lifetime in 1893, before she passed on December 29, 1894. 

-- 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 19. 

At the age of 35, Porter was convicted of embezzlement and began a five year sentence at the Ohio Penitentiary. It was during this time that Porter began writing; publishing 14 stories under various pseudonyms including the first use of the name O. Henry. The name was first used under his publication of the story Whistling Dick's Christmas Stocking. Gift of the Magi was first published in The New York Sunday World Newspaper in 1905 and again later in O. Henry's 1906 anthology The Four Million, his second collection of short stories.