Bayard Taylor

Bayard Taylor was an American poet, literary critic, translator, travel author, and diplomat. As a poet, he was extremely popular, with an audience of almost 4,000 attending a poetry reading once, setting a record that remained for 85 years. His travelogues were well-received in both the United States and Britain. He held diplomatic appointments in both Russia and Prussia. Taylor was born January 11, 1825, in Kennett Square, Chester County, Pennsylvania. He was the fourth son of Quaker couple Joseph and Rebecca Taylor, and the first to reach maturity. His mother was of half Swiss descent. His father was an affluent farmer. Charles Frederick Taylor, Bayard's younger brother, was a Union Army colonel killed in action during the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863. Bayard obtained his early education at an academy in West Chester, Pennsylvania, and later in nearby Unionville. At seventeen, he was apprenticed to a printer in West Chester. Rufus Wilmot Griswold, a renowned critic and editor, pushed him to produce poems. The resulting anthology, Ximena, or the Battle of the Sierra Morena and Other Poems, was published in 1844 and dedicated to Griswold.