Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882), was one of the best loved and most widely read poets in the United States of the 19th century. Born in Portland, Maine, he was educated in private schools. He was a clasemate of Nathaniel Hawthorne, at Bowdoin College in Maine. He graduated in 1825, and then spent three years in Europe visiting France, Italy, Spain, and Germany, studying the languages and literature of these countries preparing for a job teaching modern languages at Bowdoin which was offered to him. He taught there for six years and married in 1831. In 1835 he and his wife traveled to Europe, visiting England, Sweden, Denmark and Holland. In Holland his wife became ill and died. Longfellow began teaching at Harvard in 1836 and for the next 18 years he worked both as a professor and as a writer of books of poetry and prose. "The Village Blacksmtih" was published in 1841.   Longfellow was the first man from the United States to be honored by a monument in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey in London, England.