Taylor, [James] Bayard (1825–78), born in Pennsylvania of a Quaker family, early showed a poetic gift and desire to escape from his quiet surroundings. After the publication of his romantic verse,
Ximena (1844), he went to England and the Continent, writing letters for the
New‐York Tribune and collecting material for
Views A‐foot (1846). The
Tribune, delighted by his charming exoticism, made him manager of its literary section and sent him to California during the gold rush. After a year, he returned to publish
Eldorado (2 vols., 1850), which augmented his popularity as an adventurous hero.
The following year, he departed for travels in Egypt, Abyssinia, Turkey, India, and China, and joined the Pacific squadron of Commodore Perry. Upon his return to New York (1853), he published in quick succession
A Journey to Central Africa (1854),
The Lands of the Saracen (1855), and
A Visit to India, China, and Japan, in the Year 1853 (1855), and was in steady demand as a lyceum lecturer. His prose accounts were supplemented by
Rhymes of Travel, Ballads and Poems (1849),
A Book of Romances, Lyrics, and Songs (1852),
Poems of the Orient (1855), and other verse. Although he preferred to live as a conventional great man of letters, habit, public demand, and need of funds sent him off again in 1856 for two more years of romantic voyages, whose results were embodied in
Northern Travel (1858),
Travels in Greece and Russia (1859), and
At Home and Abroad (1860).
After his return he was engaged in journalism during the Civil War and a good deal of hackwork, which was interrupted by a year (1862) as secretary of legation in St. Petersburg. From 1863 to 1870 he wrote novels, in which for the first time he considered his native country.
Hannah Thurston (1863), a conventional love story set in upstate New York, is peppered by shots at the small‐town mind and social reformers.
John Godfrey's Fortunes (1864) is a realistic story of contemporary New York literary life.
The Story of Kennett (1866) is a character study set in his native town of Kennett Square during the 18th century.
Joseph and His Friend (1870) is another study of rural life in Pennsylvania, and
Beauty and the Beast and Tales of Home (1872) is a collection of short stories that range from romantic depictions of Russia and realistic studies of Quaker life to satires on 19th‐century reform. His poetry shows the same versatility, ranging from
Lars: A Pastoral of Norway (1873) and
Home Pastorals, Ballads and Lyrics (1875) to
The Echo Club and Other Literary Diversions (1876), containing parodies of Whitman and other contemporary poets. Taylor's last years were devoted to a translation of Goethe's
Faust, in the original meters (2 vols., 1870–71), which brought him a nonresident professorship of German at Cornell (1870–77) and the ministry to Germany (1878). This has come to be considered his most lasting work, even though the poetry itself rarely rises above the mediocrity that stamps all Taylor's sonorous but shallow verse, and which won him the somewhat hollow title of “laureate of the Gilded Age.”
