The Children’s Longfellow

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 1807-1882Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.0

Word count: 126K words
Chapters: 13

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Children's Longfellow by Doris Hayman and Henry Wadsworth LongfellowAuthor: Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 1807-1882,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Mar 18, 2009

Editor's review

The Children's Longfellow, compiled by Doris Hayman from the work of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, is a selection introducing Longfellow's poetry to young readers. Longfellow was a nineteenth-century American poet whose verse has strong rhythm and narrative drive; many pieces draw on folklore and historical stories and are naturally suited to reading aloud and telling. The value of this selection is that it presents adult poetry to young readers in an accessible way, retaining the sound and rhythm of the originals while keeping the length moderate. For readers who want to approach English and American poetry but are daunted by large volumes, it is a gentle entry point. Read it aloud to feel the meter and repetition, and use the legendary background of the poems to aid understanding. Note that this is a public-domain electronic text without illustrations, and some poems' historical background and wording need annotation. Overall it is suitable as supplementary reading for poetry initiation and an introduction to English literature.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Parents and teachers who want to introduce English poetry to children
Readers who want to approach English and American literature through short poems
People who need public-domain English poetry texts for reading-aloud practice
Beginner readers interested in nineteenth-century American poetry

Not a good fit for

Readers seeking contemporary poetic styles and novel expression
Self-learners who need detailed annotations and systematic literary explanation
Young readers who prefer richly illustrated children's books

Reading tips

Choose a short poem, read it aloud once, then read silently to understand the meaning.
Read strongly narrative poems as stories, sorting out characters and plot.
When you meet historical or legendary background, look up brief information first, then return to the poem.
Write one or two sentences of response to each poem to build your own sense of poetry.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is Longfellow's poetry difficult for children?

This selection has children in mind and mostly chooses poems with clear narrative and strong rhythm. But the originals are still nineteenth-century English poetry, and some wording and background need adult help or annotation, so the difficulty is moderate.

Is this book suitable for English reading-aloud practice?

Fairly suitable. Longfellow's poems pay attention to meter and sound, with varied line lengths, so reading aloud reveals a clear rhythm. Start with short poems, listen to a model reading or read slowly yourself, then gradually speed up.

Does the book explain the background of the poems?

This is a Project Gutenberg electronic text focused on the poems themselves and usually does not include detailed notes or explanations. If readers need to understand the historical and legendary background, they must consult relevant materials alongside the reading.

Comments

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About the author

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 1807-1882 Author

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth (1807–1882) was a nineteenth-century American poet; his name and dates are as recorded in the library, while other biographical details are limited in publicly available sources and are not speculated upon here. The library holds twenty of his works, spanning long narrative poems, short lyrics, and verse drama. Evangeline, set against the dispersal of the Acadians, is a sustained and sympathetic narrative; The Courtship of Miles Standish draws on legends of the colonial period; Tales of a Wayside Inn uses a frame narrative in which travelers tell stories from many lands; and The Wreck of the Hesperus is a ballad-like treatment of a maritime disaster. His verse attends to rhyme and rhythm and to folk and legendary material, and its plain language, addressed to ordinary readers, helped it circulate widely in the English-speaking world.