Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) was the most popular of the so-called "Fireside Poets," a group that included Ralph Waldo Emerson, John Greenleaf Whittier, James Russell Lowell, and Oliver Wendell Holmes. The name of the group derived from the fact that people often entertained one another in the evening by reading aloud by the fireside.

Longfellow was born in Portland, Maine, and attended Bowdoin College there. Following graduation and language study in Europe, Longfellow taught foreign languages first at Bowdoin and then at Harvard. Well-known works by Longfellow include "A Psalm of Life," "The Wreck of the Hesperus," "Excelsior," "The Arsenal at Springfield," Evangeline, Song of Hiawatha, "The Children's Hour," The Courtship of Miles Standish, and "Paul Revere's Ride" (one of the Tales of a Wayside Inn). Longfellow also edited The Poets and Poetry of Europe, an important anthology.

As famous in Britain as in the United States, he received honorary degrees from Oxford and Cambridge and was given a private audience with Queen Victoria. After his death, a bust of Longfellow was installed in the Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey, making him the only American poet to be so honored.