Poets

James Bayard Taylor was an American poet, literary critic, translator, and travel author.

Life and Work

He was born on January 11, 1825, in Kennett Square in Chester County, Pennsylvania. He was the fourth son, first to live to maturity, of Joseph and Rebecca (née Way) Taylor. His father was a well-to-do farmer and young Bayard received his early instruction in an academy at West Chester, and later at Unionville. At the age of seventeen he was apprenticed to a printer in West Chester. His interest in poetry was coached by influential critic and editor Rufus Wilmot Griswold, who encouraged him to produce a volume of poetry. Published at Philadelphia in 1844 under the title Ximena, or the Battle of the Sierra Morena, and other Poems was dedicated to Griswold,though it brought its author little profit; and indirectly it did him better service as the means of his introduction to The New York Tribune.

With the money thus obtained, and with an advance made to him on account of some journalistic work to be done in Europe, JB Taylor (as he had up to this time signed himself, though he bore no other Christian name than Bayard) set sail for the East. The young poet spent a happy time in roaming through certain districts of England, France, Germany and Italy; that he was a born traveler is evident from the fact that this pedestrian tour of almost two years cost him only £100. The graphic accounts which he sent from Europe to The New York Tribune, The Saturday Evening P..