SOURCE: A review of The Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and The Prose Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, in North American Review, Vol. 104, No. 215, pp. 531-41.

In the following essay, the anonymous reviewer praises the scope of Longfellow's work and contends that “it is yet too soon to measure the whole obligation of American letters to him, and it seems somewhat late to reason minutely of the fact of his genius.”

The publication of a complete and uniform edition of Mr. Longfellow's Works is an event which suggests to us not so much question as acknowledgment of his excellence, and we have here rather to celebrate a fame already assured than to enter upon a critical analysis of his poetry. It is yet too soon to measure the whole obligation of American letters to him, and it seems somewhat late to reason minutely of the fact of...