author
Richard Hovey
1864–1900
A lively American poet and dramatist of the 1890s, he is best remembered for spirited, adventurous verse and for helping give voice to the bohemian mood of his era. His work ranges from college song and lyric poetry to imaginative dramas shaped by myth and legend.
3 Audiobooks
Songs from Vagabondia
by Bliss Carman, Richard Hovey
More Songs From Vagabondia
by Bliss Carman, Richard Hovey
Seaward: An Elegy on the Death of Thomas William Parsons
by Richard Hovey
About the author
Born in Normal, Illinois, in 1864, Richard Hovey became known as an American poet, dramatist, and translator. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1885, where he was deeply involved in campus literary life, and he later wrote the school's alma mater, "Men of Dartmouth."
Hovey built his reputation in the 1890s with energetic, romantic writing that appealed strongly to young readers of his time. He collaborated with fellow poet Bliss Carman on the popular Songs from Vagabondia books, and he also wrote verse dramas drawing on Arthurian legend and other mythic material.
His life was short—he died in 1900 at just 35—but his work left a distinct mark on American literary culture at the end of the nineteenth century. Readers often come to Hovey for his sense of freedom, music, and movement: poems and plays that feel restless, idealistic, and full of open-road energy.