The Poets and Poetry of America

The Poets and Poetry of America was a popular anthology of American poetry collected by American literary critic and editor Rufus Wilmot Griswold. It was first published in 1842 and went into several editions throughout the 19th century.

Rufus Griswold had begun work as a critic working for the New York Tribune and Philadelphia's Daily Standard and earned his reputation as a vindictive and savage literary critic. He was also a proponent of American poetry. He claimed to have read every American poem published before 1850—an estimated 500 volumes. His nationalism was well known. Publisher Evert Augustus Duyckinck noted that "the thought [of a national literature] seems to have entered and taken possession of [Griswold's] mind with the force of monomania". His anthology was part of his ongoing efforts to promote distinctly American poetry.

Philadelphia publishers Carey & Hart wrote to Griswold in New York on April 18, 1842, "We have at last published the 'Poets & Poetry of America' & a handsome Book it is". The anthology was 476 pages and collected poems from over 80 authors, including 17 by Lydia Sigourney, three by Edgar Allan Poe, and 45 by Charles Fenno Hoffman. It gave prominent space to some of the most popular poets of the day, including Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and William Cullen Bryant. The collection was dedicated to Washington Allston.

The book proved popular enough that it went through three editions within only six months. A minor poet from Virginia named Daniel Bryan wrote of his disbelief at the rapidity with which the book went into new editions. "Is there not some of the 'trickery of trade' in this?—What was the am[ount] of the 1st edition—and may not the 2nd ed. have been printed at the same time the 1st was?" After Griswold's death, Richard Henry Stoddard revised the book and issued several new editions later in the 19th century.

The Poets and Poetry of America was the most comprehensive of its kind up to that period. After its release, it was called "the most valuable publication of the season" in the April 23, 1842, issue of the Saturday Evening Post. Critic Lewis Gaylord Clark considered it important to "become incorporated into the permanent undying literature of our age and nation".

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