Home > Rufus Griswold

He was born in Benson, Vermont. He traveled extensively, worked in newspaper offices, was a Baptist clergyman for a time, and finally became a journalist in New York City, where he was successively a member of the staffs of The Brother Jonathan, The New World (1839-1840) and The New Yorker (1840). From 1841 to 1843 he edited Graham's Magazine (Philadelphia), and added to its list of contributors many leading American writers. From 1850 to 1852 he edited the International Magazine (New York), which in 1852 was merged into Harper's Magazine. He died in New York City.

Griswold was known as the compiler and editor of various anthologies (with brief biographies and critiques), such as Poets and Poetry of America (1842), his most popular and valuable book; Prose Writers of America (1846); Female Poets of America (1848); and Sacred Poets of England and America (1849). Of his own writings his Republican Court: or American Society in the Days of Washington (1854) is the only one of permanent value. He edited the first American edition of Milton's prose works (1845), and, claiming to be literary executor, edited, with James Russell Lowell and N. P. Willis, the works of Edgar Allan Poe (1850). This edition included a biographical "Memoir" which has become notorious for its inaccuracy. Griswold's great contemporary reputation as a critic has not stood the test of time; but he rendered a valuable service in making Americans better acquainted with the poetry and prose of their own countrymen.

This article incorporates text from the public domain 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica. 1911 Britannica