University of Virginia Library University of Virginia
Early American Fiction Collection

EAF Author: William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878)

Works in the Collection      Biographies      Other Resources

William Cullen Bryant was born in Massachusetts, but settled in New York, where he worked as a poet and journalist. Bryant was editor of the New York Evening Post. He published his first poem, "The Embargo," at age thirteen, and composed "Thanatopsis" at age nineteen. In addition to several published volumes of poetry, he produced translations of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. A staunch opponent of slavery, Bryant also helped to found the Republican Party.

Works in the EAF Collection

The Skeleton's Cave (1832)

Contemporary Biographies

From Oscar Fay Adams, A Dictionary of American Authors (1901)

From Samuel Austin Allibone, A Critical Dictionary of English Literature (1900)

From Evert A. Duyckinck, Cyclopaedia of American Literature (1856)