The Poetry Of John Greenleaf Whittier

All of Whittier's poetry works, collected and illustrated.

William Jolliff, Professor of English at George Fox University, has selected 55 of John Greenleaf Whittier's more than 500 poems with the intention of turning Quaker (and other) readers into Whittier fans. His guiding focus for this edition is readability by contemporaries. A biographical and critical introduction and the identification of themes in introductions to each section are important guides. William Jolliff's brief introductions to the poems themselves give specific historical background and interpretive help when necessary. Includes Snow-Bound, Ichabod, Telling the Bees, The Barefoot Boy, Skipper Ireson's Ride, and In the Old South.

Poet John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892) proved a significant contributor to American Protestant hymnody--since 1843, more than 2,100 hymnals published in the United States have included adaptations of his works--despite the fact that Whittier never considered himself a hymnist. This book compares and contrasts Whittier's original published texts with versions adapted as hymns, exhibiting the hymnodic elements of his poetry and displaying the textual changes to Whittier's lines by hymnal editors from a variety of denominations. The work offers in-depth comparative studies of many of his poems and their resultant hymns, a catalogue of hymns-from-poems, a chronology of Whittier's life and works, notes, bibliography and index.