27 Memorial Drive West, Bethlehem, PA 18015
To explore the relationships between the various bohemian writers and artists who frequented Pfaff's bar, select a person or group, and then select a relationship type. This section of the site is currently under construction; new content is being added on a regular basis.
Gunn journals meeting Bayard Taylor, "to the Tribune Office and was there introduced to Bayard Taylor, who impressed me very pleasantly. He was here on reportorial duty and had what appeared to be a magnificent horse waiting to bear him to Manassas" (30).
Gunn finds Taylor in the Tribune Office and describes their encounter, "Wednesday. Scribbling in my room after a sally out to purchase ink. A second-rate Southern hotel dinner. To Washington by the 4 o'clock boat. Found Bayard Taylor in the Tribune Office, sitting with a very sunburnt face and rough blue shirt, coat off, writing his account of the evacuation of Manassas, from which he had just returned. He regarded it, rightly, as a success on the part of the Confederates and a humiliation to the Union troops or rather their monstrously be-puffed general" (41).
Ludlow was a member of Taylor's poetic group, along with Richard Henry Stoddard, Elizabeth Barstow Stoddard, Edmund Clarence Stedman, George Henry Boker, Fitz-James O'Brien, Christopher P. Cranch, and George William Curtis.
Described as "always a favorite with Mr. Willis" (596).
Winter reprints a letter Taylor wrote him on the subject of the book dated October 8, 1872, from Goatha. In this letter Taylor thanks Winter for sending him copies of the New York papers and mentions that he hopes Winter does not mind that Taylor parodied his writing. Taylor also discusses his European travels and asks after Winter and other New York friends. Taylor speaks of his return and asks Winter to write him with "all the gossip, literary and otherwise" (161-164).
Winter notes that at one point in time, he and Taylor lived almost across the street from each other, on East Eighteenth Street, in New York, and worked together at "The New York Tribune," so they met often and exchanged notes when they could not meet (167-8).
Winter also recalls that his first meeting with Taylor was at the Stoddards' home at the northeast corner of Fourth Avenue and Tenth Street, in New York, where they would often gather their friends: "there I have seen Taylor, as also at his own fireside and at mine, the incarnation of joviality and the soul of mirth" (177).
Taylor, Stoddard, Aldrich, and Stedman are mentioned as the parties in New York involved in the "inconsistent opposition" to the third edition of Leaves of Grass in 1859-1860. Clapp battled against them.
In 1871, Taylor, "recently a friend of Whitman" wrote a parody of Whitman that appeared in the Tribune:
"Who was it that sang of the procreant urge, recounted sextillions of subjects?
Who but myself, the Kosmos, yawping abroad, concerned not at all about either the effect or the answer" (433).
This, and other parodies were written in response to Whitman's attempt to substitute for Greeley at the National Industrial Exhibition (433). After this satire, Whitman "detested" Taylor and was disappointed when Taylor was asked to deliver a poem at the Centennial Celebration in Philadelpia (463).
According to Parry, Taylor was among the contemporary writers who were not fans of or friends of Walt Whitman (41).
Curtis was a member of Bayard Taylor's poetic group.
Taylor worked as the literary editor for Greeley's Tribune (51)
Taylor wrote the introduction for Stoddard's Life of Baron Humboldt, which was a condition of its publication by Carleton (600).
Taylor and Winter worked together for some time at the Tribune (167-8).
Taylor wrote a sonnet for Aldrich's marriage to Miss Woodman on November 28, 1865 (85).
Mrs. Aldrich discusses Taylor seeing them off on the Abyssinia when the Aldriches went abroad and how he brought them his own cure for seasickness (162-164).
Aldrich writes a letter expressing his sorrow over Bayard Taylor's death (224).
The second sonnet, entitled "Three Flowers," is dedicated to Bayard Taylor (91).
Aldrich wrote in a letter to Taylor about Boston, "I miss my few dear friends in New York-but that is all. There is a finer intellectual atmosphere here than in our city....The people of Boston are full-blooded readers, appreciative, trained."
Bayard was a member of Aldrich's "nearer circle of contemporaries" during his experience in the "Literary Bohemia" in New York (38).
Aldrich mentions in a letter to Howells dated Dec. 13,1876, that he received a letter from Taylor that was "so full of affection and unaffectedness that I am ashamed to love him with only all my heart (129).
Greenslet claims Taylor's death death brought "a keen sorrow" to Aldrich; Taylor had "gone abroad with his well-merited ministerial honors, never to return." Greenslet quotes a letter Aldrich wrote to a friend that discusses Taylor's death, "...My heart is heavy just now with the death of Bayard Taylor, my dear friend, without a cloud, for twenty-five years. It is like losing an arm. It is worse than that -- it is losing a loyal heart. He was a man without guile" (136). Greenselt reprints Aldrich's elegy for Taylor on pp. 136-137.
Greenslet reprints Aldrich's letters to Taylor on the following pages: 32-3,70-1, 73-5,81-3,103-4, 107-8, 125-127,129-132
Hemstreet discusses Taylor's first meeting and friendship with Stoddard. According to Hemstreet, at the time of their meeting, Taylor had already traveled across Europe on foot and had published his account of his trip in Views Afoot. At this time, Taylor was also one of several editors working for Greeley at the Tribune. Taylor and George Ripley wrote the paper's book criticisms. According to Hemstreet, "Views Afoot was the most popular book of its day when Stoddard walked into the Tribune office and introduced himself to the author, finding him very hard at work in a little pen of a room" (204-5). Taylor and Stoddard's friendship lasted thirty years. The two met on Saturdays at Taylor's small apartment where Taylor taught Stoddard to smoke and the men discussed literature and wrote poetry (206).
Taylor is mentioned as a friend of O'Brien and was incorporated into the intimate circle that included the Bohemians. In John Godfrey's Fortunes, Taylor bases the character Brandagee on O'Brien.
According to Derby, Stedman's "How old Brown took Harper's Ferry" was the "indirect cause of the beginning of a lasting friendship with Bayard Taylor." Taylor was lecturing in the West when the poem was published in the Tribune, and would sometimes read the poem to his audiences. When he returned to New York, he and Stedman met for the first time. Stedman asked Taylor about Stoddard, and Taylor introduced the two men the next day, beginning another life-long friendship. Derby also writes that "The death of Bayard Taylor was a great blow to his brother poets, and both Mr. Stedman and Mr. Stoddard have in prose and poetry rendered affectionate tributes to the memory of their friend, the distinguished poet, traveler, and diplomat, whose death created a vacancy in American literature which has never been filled" (535).
In a letter to William Winter, Taylor mentions some of the reviews of his works, including Stedman's review of his Vienna Letters, which Taylor says he would think were ironic if he didn't have an existing friendship with Stedman and if Stedman hadn't seen the poem before it was published (173-4).
Winter notes that Taylor's writings show that he had strong affection for Stoddard and Boker (177).
Included in a list of literary figures with whom Elizabeth shared a friendship (9).
Elizabeth lost one of her children while she was at Taylor's house (9).
According to Derby, Stedman asked Taylor about Stoddard, and Taylor introduced the two men the next day, beginning another life-long friendship. Derby also writes that "The death of Bayard Taylor was a great blow to his brother poets, and both Mr. Stedman and Mr. Stoddard have in prose and poetry rendered affectionate tributes to the memory of their friend, the distinguished poet, traveler, and diplomat, whose death created a vacancy in American literature which has never been filled" (535).
Stoddard met Bayard Taylor through Mrs. C.M. Kirkland. When she left for Europe, she left Taylor in charge of the Union Magazine, and "told Mr. Stoddard, that during her absence, he had better call upon the latter, as he would be sure to like him" (597). Derby reprints Stoddard's account of their first meeting from recollections of Bayard Taylor, contributed to the New York Independent p.597-599.
Taylor and Stoddard met the same year Stoddard met his wife (204). Hemstreet describes their first meeting at the offices of the Tribune, when Stoddard entered Taylor's office and found him hard at work. Stoddard visited Taylor at home a few days later (205). Stoddard visited him every Saturday after work at the foundry, and Taylor taught Stoddard how to smoke, they wrote poetry together, and discussed literature (206). Stoddard also made several friends through Taylor (207).
Taylor and Richard Henry Stoddard were friends, and met while they were "poetry-struck teenagers" (51).
Parry mentions that Taylor and Stedman were among the "valued friends" Stoddard "weaned" away from Pfaff's and into respectability (59).
Stoddard's obituary mentions that during the years Stoddard worked at the Custom House (1853-1870), he struck up an acquaintance and then a friendship with Taylor (217)
The obituary states that "By the best of his leisure he struggled up into self-education, and the companionship of such men as Bayard Taylor and Henry Clapp" (5).
Stoddard recalls spending late nights in his quarters writing verse with O'Brien and Bayard Taylor, who "had just returned from the Orient" (44).
Allen mentions that Taylor visited with Whitman around the winter holidays in 1867 (378).
In 1871, Taylor, "recently a friend of Whitman" wrote a parody of Whitman that appeared in the Tribune:
"Who was it that sang of the procreant urge, recounted sextillions of subjects?
Who but myself, the Kosmos, yawping abroad, concerned not at all about either the effect or the answer" (433).
This, and other parodies were written in response to Whitman's attempt to substitute for Greeley at the National Industrial Exhibition (433). After this satire, Whitman "detested" Taylor and was disappointed when Taylor was asked to deliver a poem at the Centennial Celebration in Philadelpia (463).
A letter from Walt Whitman to Bayard Taylor, thanking him for a book, and asking him to come visit at the Attorney General’s office where Whitman is employed.
Whitman notes that he "had a visit from Bayard Taylor, a few days since" (305).
Hemstreet mentions that Stoddard and Taylor once lived together across the street from 108 Waverly Place; their house was at the corner (238).
Stoddard wrote the Life of Humbolt when he lived with Taylor near the corner of Third Avenue and Thirteenth Street (241).
27 Memorial Drive West, Bethlehem, PA 18015