RUFUS

See also:

• WILMOT
• WILMOT, DAVID (1814-1868)

WILMOT

See also:

• RUFUS WILMOT GRISWOLD (1815–1857)

GRISWOLD (1815–1857)  , American editor and compiler, was born in Benson, Vermont, on the 15th of February 1815 . He travelled 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 185o to 1852 he edited the International Magazine (New York), which in 1852 was merged into Harper's Magazine . He died in New York City on the 27th of August 1857 . He is best 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 (18J4) is the only one of permanent value . He edited the first American edition of Milton's prose works (1845), and, as literary executor, edited, with James R . Lowell and N . P . Willis, the works (1850) of Edgar Allan Poe . 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 .

See Passages from the

Correspondence and Other Papers of Rufus W . Griswold (Cambridge, Mass., *898), edited by his son William McCrillis Griswold (1853–1899) .