Background
Henry Hope Reed was born July 11, 1808 in Philadelphia, the son of Joseph and Maria Ellis (Watmaugh) Reed. His father was state attorney-general in 1810 and later city recorder.
(Excerpt from Discover New York With Henry Hope Reed, Jr.:...)
Excerpt from Discover New York With Henry Hope Reed, Jr.: A Series of Well-Mapped Walking Tours, Reprinted From the Pages of New York Herald Tribune A walk through a gracious quarter near the Bowery where the fashionable and literary once flourished. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
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Henry Hope Reed was born July 11, 1808 in Philadelphia, the son of Joseph and Maria Ellis (Watmaugh) Reed. His father was state attorney-general in 1810 and later city recorder.
Reed attended the classical school conducted by James Ross, graduated with honors from the University of Pennsylvania in 1825.
He read law in the office of his uncle John Sergeant, and was admitted to practice in 1829. Finding the family profession distasteful, he accepted in 1831 an assistant professorship of English literature in the University of Pennsylvania, where after two months he was transferred to the department of moral philosophy.
From 1835 until his death he was professor of rhetoric and English literature in the University.
After Reed's death, his brother, William Bradford Reed, edited his Lectures on English Literature from Chaucer to Tennyson (1855); Lectures on English History and Tragic Poetry as Illustrated by Shakespeare (1855); Two Lectures on the History of the American Union (1856); and Lectures on the British Poets. Engagingly written, the volumes on literature are expository and appreciative rather than analytical, and bear comparison with similar work by Robert Southey.
They were much read in the United States for some twenty years and were republished in England. Although Wordsworth had readers and even admirers in the United States from the time of the republication of the Lyrical Ballads at Philadelphia in 1802, Reed was his first American exponent. His admiration for the poet stopped just short of idolatry; his friends were half amused and half incensed by his skill in maneuvering a conversation around to his inexhaustible, beloved topic. By his editorial work, lectures, and articles he did more than any one else to secure Wordsworth's fame in America.
His critique in the New York Review for January 1839 was especially notable. He corresponded with Wordsworth; with Bishop George Washington Doane he persuaded him to insert a reference to the American Episcopal Church in the Ecclesiastical Sonnets; in 1844 he sent Henry Inman to Rydal Mount to paint the portrait that now hangs in the Library of the University of Pennsylvania.
Reed's admiration for Wordsworth was not wholly undiscriminating, but as a devout Episcopalian he was as much edified by the later as by the earlier poetry. In the spring of 1854 Reed made his only visit to Europe, accompanied by his sister-in-law, Miss Bronson.
In England he was cordially received, and his charm and scholarship left a deep impression on his hosts. After a tour on the Continent, he returned to England, and on September 20, 1854, he and his sister-in-law sailed for home in the steamer Arctic. A week later the Arctic struck a French vessel in a fog and sank with the loss of the captain and three hundred passengers. When last seen, Reed and Miss Bronson were sitting in a passage abaft the dining saloon, waiting calmly but with evident anxiety for the end.
(Excerpt from Discover New York With Henry Hope Reed, Jr.:...)
In 1838 he was elected to membership in the American Philosophical Society.
In 1834 he married Elizabeth White Bronson, daughter of Enos Bronson and grand-daughter of Bishop William White, who with two daughters and a son survived him. Three other children died in infancy.