Bayard Taylor

Traveller, journalist, and writer, born in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, USA. Brought up as a Quaker, he travelled widely in Europe (1844–5) and the Near and Far East (1851–3), and became a master's mate aboard Commodore Perry's expedition to Japan (1853). He wrote and lectured extensively about his travels. Meanwhile, he continued to publish poetry, novels, and his translation of Goethe's Faust (2 vols, 1870–1). He was serving as US ambassador to Germany when he died.

Bayard Taylor
Born	January 11, 1825 Chester County, Pennsylvania, USA
Died	December 19, 1878 Germany

Bayard Taylor (James) (January 11, 1825 – December 19, 1878) U.S. writer, was born at Kennett Square in Chester County, Pennsylvania.

The son of a well-to-do farmer, he received his early instruction in an academy at West Chester, and later at Unionville. and indirectly it did him better service as the means of his introduction to The New York Tribune.

With the money thus obtained, and with an advance made to him on account of some journalistic work to be done in Europe, JB Taylor (as he had up to this time signed himself, though he bore no other Christian name than Bayard) set sail for the East. The graphic accounts which he sent from Europe to The New York Tribune, The Saturday Evening Post, and The United States Gazette were so highly appreciated that on Taylor's return to America he was advised to throw his articles into book form.

In 1846, accordingly, appeared his Views Afoot, or Europe seen with Knapsack and Staff (2 vols, New York). moreover, Horace Greeley, then editor of the Tribune, placed Taylor on the Tribune staff (1848) thus securing him a certain if a moderate income. from this expedition he returned by way of Mexico, and, seeing his opportunity, published (2 vols, New York, 1850) a highly successful book of travels, entitled El Dorado;

Bayard Taylor always considered himself native to the East, and it was with great delight that in 1851 he found himself on the banks of the Nile, He ascended as far as 12' 30° N, and stored his memory with countless sights and delights, to many of which he afterwards gave expression in metrical form.

The results of these journeys (besides his poetical memorials) were A Journey to Central Africa;

On his return (December 20, 1853) from these various journeyings he entered, with marked success, upon the career of a public lecturer, delivering addresses in every town of importance from Maine to Wisconsin.

His first wife, May Agnew, died (1850) within a year of her marriage, and in October 1857 he married Maria Hansen, the daughter of Peter Hansen, the German astronomer.

In 1864 he returned to the United States and resumed his active literary labors, and it was at this period that Hannah Thurston (New York, 1863), the first of his four novels, was published. This book had a moderate success, but neither in it nor in its successors did Bayard Taylor betray any special talent as a novelist. His late novel, Joseph and His Friend: A Story of Pennsylvania (New York, 1870), recounts an intimate friendship between two men and has been called America's first gay novel.

In June 1878 he was accredited United States minister at Berlin. Notwithstanding the resistless passion for travel which had always possessed him, Bayard Taylor was (when not actually en route) sedentary in his habits, especially in the later years of his life.

Taylor's most ambitious productions in poetry--his Masque of the Gods (Boston, 1872), Prince Deukalion; a lyrical drama (Boston, 1878), The Picture of St John (Boston, 1866), Lars; But he will be remembered by his poetic and excellent translation of Faust (2 vols, Boston, 1870-71) in the original metres.

Taylor felt, in all truth, the torment and the ecstasy of verse;

In his critical essays Bayard Taylor had himself in no inconsiderable degree what he wrote of as that pure poetic insight which is the vital spirit of criticism. Collected editions of his Poetical Works and his Dramatic Works were published at Boston in 1888; his Life and Letters (Boston, 2 vols, 1884) were edited by his wife and Horace E.

See also Albert H.