popular. He died in 1882. He was the first American writer who was
honored by a memorial in Westminster Abbey.

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER was born near Haverhill, Massachusetts,
December 17, 1807. He was educated in the public school, working at
the same time on his father's farm or at making shoes. Having left
the academy, he devoted himself to literature. He was an ardent
abolitionist, and many of his poems are written to aid the cause of
freedom in which he was so deeply interested. His best-known poems
are "Snow-Bound," "Barbara Frietchie," "Maude Muller," and "Voices of
Freedom." He died in 1892.

EDGAR ALLAN POE was born in Boston, Massachusetts, January 19,
1809. The story of his life is as melancholy as was his genius.
Wild, dissipated, reckless, he was dismissed from West Point. He
alienated his best friends and lived the greatest part of his life in
the deepest poverty, dying in 1849 from the effects of dissipation
and exposure. His best poems are "The Raven," "The Bells," and
"Annabel Lee."

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts,
August 29, 1809. He was educated at Harvard College and studied
medicine, spending two years in the hospitals of Europe. He was
successively professor of Anatomy and Physiology at Dartmouth
College, a physician in regular practice in Boston, and professor of
anatomy at Harvard College--this position he held from 1847 to 1882.
He was nearly fifty before he became widely known as a writer, when
"The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table" was published. He was successful
as essayist, novelist, poet, a kindly wit playing through much of his
work. His best-known poems are "Old Ironsides," "The Chambered