Event Details

When local author Sydelle Pearl learned that an armchair made from the “spreading chestnut tree” referred to in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem “The Village Blacksmith” was given to the poet on his seventy-second birthday, February 27, 1879, by the children of Cambridge, Massachusetts, she set out on a research journey to find out the story behind this special gift. Along the way, she uncovered a treasure trove of birthday letters to Henry from children across America that she drew from to write her unique biography, Dear Mr. Longfellow: Letters to and from the Children’s Poet, published in 2012 by Prometheus Books.