Description

Taylor (1825-78) was an American poet, literary critic, translator, travel author, and diplomat. At 17 he was apprenticed to a printer and was encouraged to write poetry by critic and editor Rufus Wilmot Griswald, resulting in the publication of Ximena, or The Battle of the Sierra Morena, in 1844. With the money earned from his poetry and an advance for travel articles, he visited England, France, Germany and Italy, making largely pedestrian tours for almost two years. He sent accounts of his travels to various journals in the US and in 1846 published a collection of these pieces as Views A-Foot. In 1848 he was sent to California to report on the goldrush for the New York Tribune and returned via Mexico, publishing a second collection of travel articles in 1850. Further travels took him to Egypt, Palestine and the Mediterranean countries, and later to India, China and Japan, and he published several more books covering these journies. On his return to the US in 1853 he undertook a successful lecture tour, after which he went to Sweden which inspired his long narrative poem Lars. In 1862 he was appointed to the US diplomatic service as secretary of legation in St Petersburg, and 1863 saw the publication of his first novel, Hannah Thurston. He later embarked on a horseback tour of Colorado and the northern mountains and a trip to Iceland. In 1878 he was appointed US Minister to Prussia but a few months after arriving in Berlin, Taylor died there in December 1878. His body was returned to the US and Longfellow wrote a memorial poem in his memory.