author
Charles Sprague
1791–1875
Remembered as the “Banker Poet of Boston,” this early American writer balanced a long career in banking with a gift for polished, public verse. His poems range from prize-winning odes to warm domestic pieces that helped make him widely admired in the 19th century.
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About the author
Born in Boston on October 26, 1791, Charles Sprague became one of the earliest American poets to win broad recognition. He was educated in Boston and entered business young, later spending decades with the State Bank and Globe Bank. That unusual mix of practical work and literary ambition helped earn him the lasting nickname "the Banker Poet of Boston."
Sprague became known for formal poems written for public occasions, including odes and prologues that won prizes and brought him a strong reputation in his own time. His work was gathered in The Writings of Charles Sprague in 1841, and readers also valued his more personal and domestic poems, which gave his writing a warmer, more intimate side.
He died in Boston on January 22, 1875. Although he is less widely read now than some of his contemporaries, he remains an interesting figure in early American literature: a poet whose career shows how literary life in the United States was taking shape in the first half of the 19th century.