author
Francis Speir
1856–1925
A poet with a lawyer’s training and an explorer’s curiosity, he moved between literature, science, and travel. His work is best remembered for In Colima, and Other Poems, a slim 1912 collection shaped by place, observation, and reflection.
1 Audiobook
Palæontological Report of the Princeton Scientific Expedition of 1877
by Henry Fairfield Osborn, William Berryman Scott, Francis Speir
About the author
Born in 1856 and known as Francis Speir, Jr., he was an American writer whose surviving published work includes In Colima, and Other Poems from 1912. He is also listed in public-domain library records and author pages that preserve his work and basic life dates, 1856–1925.
Speir’s interests seem to have stretched well beyond poetry. As a young man, he took part in Princeton scientific expeditions to the American West, and his name appears as a co-author of the 1878 Palæontological Report of the Princeton Scientific Expedition of 1877. That mix of literary and scientific activity gives him the feel of a classic late-19th-century man of letters: educated, curious, and drawn to both ideas and the wider world.
Although he is not widely known today, the record that remains suggests a life shaped by study, travel, and close attention to the natural world. For listeners, his appeal lies partly in that blend—poetry written by someone who had also worked in law and shared in the age of field expeditions and discovery.