Edgar Allan Poe, who as a critic always knew how to find the heart with his first bullet, wrote of William Ellery Channing II in the opening flourish of his 1843 annihilation of the young poet's first volume: "He is a, and by no means the, William Ellery Channing." Ellery Channing's long life, lived in the shadow of his illustrious family and his famous friends, was one of protean failure. He failed as student, as farmer, as lawyer, as journalist, as poet, and as novelist; he failed most dismally, perhaps, as son, as husband, and as father. In his final decade he acknowledged that his career had been an utter and abject disaster. Yet, he persisted; he never stopped writing, and he never ceased to believe in the power of poetry, for all he doubted, as most did then and have since, his own poetic powers. He also kept...