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Cross of Snow by Nicholas A. Basbanes
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Cross of Snow

A Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

$26.24

Get for $14.99 with membership
Narrator Robert Fass
Length 15 hours 21 minutes
Language English
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In Cross of Snow, the result of more than twelve years of research, including access to never-before-examined letters, diaries, journals, notes, Nicholas Basbanes reveals the life, the times, the work—the soul—of the man who shaped the literature of a new nation with his countless poems, sonnets, stories, essays, translations, and whose renown was so wide-reaching that his deep friendships included Charles Dickens, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Julia Ward Howe, and Oscar Wilde.

Basbanes writes of the shaping of Longfellow's character, his huge body of work that included translations of numerous foreign works, among them, the first rendering into a complete edition by an American of Dante's Divine Comedy. We see Longfellow's two marriages, each cut short by tragedy. His first to Mary Storer Potter that ended in the aftermath of a miscarriage, leaving Longfellow devastated. His second marriage to the brilliant Boston socialite—Fanny Appleton, after a three-year pursuit by Longfellow (his "fiery crucible," he called it), and his emergence as a literary force and a man of letters.

A portrait of a bold artist, experimenter of poetic form and an innovative translator—the human being that he was, the times in which he lived, the people whose lives he touched, his monumental work, and its place in his America and ours.

Nicholas A. Basbanes was born in Lowell, Massachusetts. He is an award-winning investigative journalist and was literary editor of the Worcester Sunday Telegram. His articles have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Smithsonian. He is the author of eight books. Basbanes lives in North Grafton, Massachusetts.

A two-time Audie Award winner, veteran actor Robert Fass is equally at home in a wide variety of styles, genres, characters, and dialects. An eight-time Audie nominee with over 225 unabridged audiobooks to his credit, Robert has also earned multiple Earphones Awards. In addition, his work was listed among AudioFile's Best Audiobooks of the Year in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2016, and 2018. Robert has given voice to modern and classic fiction writers alike, including Ray Bradbury, John Steinbeck, Carlos Fuentes, Jeffrey Deaver, and Nele Neuhaus, plus bestselling nonfiction works in history, politics, health, journalism, philosophy, and business.

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Get a free audiobook AND support bookstores Make the switch