Although he will never again command the status of literary giant accorded him in the last years of his life, Americans can relegate James Russell Lowell to the condition of unsampled historical curiosity only with injustice to him and loss to themselves. The absence of popular and scholarly attention to Lowell in the mid twentieth century indicates the precipitous decline in the reputation of one of the most important New England fathers of a distinctive and distinguished national literature. Perhaps he wrote and did too much in his long lifetime. He was lawyer, professor, social reformer and political activist, poet, essayist, critic, diplomat, and editor--but if his immense versatility was somehow his downfall, his essential vitality is undeniable. If he is too broadly and perfectly representative, the achievements as well as the very fact of that representativeness are remarkable. If he offers both successes and failures to public...