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Author: Dana, Richard Henry

Biography:

Dana, Richard Henry (1787-1879: WBIS)

A lawyer by profession but a man of letters by choice, he was born into a well-to-do Boston family that lost its fortune through bad investments. His parents were Francis Dana, a judge, and Elizabeth (Ellery) Dana. He entered Harvard in 1804, but was expelled for taking part in a student rebellion; he then turned to the study of law and was called to the bar in Baltimore in 1811. In 1813 he married Ruth Charlotte Smith, who bore him four children before she died in 1822: one of them, Richard Henry Dana, Jr., was to be the author of Two Years before the Mast. Dana was one of the founders of the North American Review in 1814 and the founder of and major contributor to another (but short-lived) literary magazine, The Idle Man, in New York in 1821. Between 1839 and 1851, he travelled the northeastern US giving lectures on Shakespeare which remain in manuscript; thereafter he withdrew from public life and chose to live quietly at home in Boston. (ANBO 4 July 2018)

 

Other Names:

  • Richard H. Dana
 

Books written (3):

Boston: Bowles and Dearborn, 1827
Boston: Russell, Odiorne, and Co., 1833