Fitz-Greene Halleck

Born in Guilford, Connecticut, in 1790, Fitz-Greene Halleck moved to New York City as a young man and spent much of his working life there. Although he earned his living in banking, including work connected with John Jacob Astor, poetry made his name, and he became a leading figure in the Knickerbocker group of writers.

Halleck was admired for both playful satire and more romantic, reflective verse. He collaborated with Joseph Rodman Drake on the popular Croaker Papers, a series of satirical pieces published in the New York Evening Post, and he was also influenced by British Romantic poets, especially Byron.

In his own time, Halleck was widely celebrated, though his reputation faded after his death in 1867. He remains an important early American poet, remembered for helping give New York literary culture a strong public voice.