Bayard Taylor

Bayard Taylor (1825-1878) was an American poet, literary critic, and travel writer. Born in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, he was raised in a wealthy family of Quaker farmers. At 17, he began working as a printer's apprentice and soon turned to poetry under the recommendation of Rufus Wilmot Griswold. Finding success with his first volume, Ximena, or the Battle of the Sierra Morena, and other Poems (1844), Taylor became a prominent travel writer, visiting Europe and sending accounts of his experience to such publications as the Tribune and The Saturday Evening Post. Throughout his career, he traveled to Egypt, Palestine, China, and Japan, interviewing such figures as commodore Matthew Perry and German scientist Alexander von Humboldt. Beginning in 1862, Taylor served for one year as a U.S. diplomat in St. Petersburg, publishing his first novel in 1863. Over the next several years, he traveled across the American west with his wife Maria, publishing Colorado: A Summer Trip (1867), a collection of travel essays. His late work Joseph and His Friend: A Story of Pennsylvania (1870), originally serialized in The Atlantic, was reviewed poorly upon publication, but has since been recognized as America's first gay novel.