WHITTIER, JOHN GREENLEAF. - American poet, b. at Haverhill (Massachusetts) on Dec. 17, 1807, d. at Hampton Falls on Sept. 7, 1892. He was the son of a Quaker farmer and his early career was difficult.
He enthusiastically embraced the cause of abolitionism and devoted much of his poetic work to it, though he was aware that by doing so he was making it occasional and limiting its intrinsic value. His true vocation, in fact, lay in the ballad of local color, and the reading of Burns, to whom he dedicated one of his best poems (1854), had presided over II. The complete edition of his verses was published in 1888-90. Predominant in them are moralism and political passion.
BIBL.: S. T. Pickard, J. G. W., 2 vols., Boston 1894; A. Mordell, Quaker Militant: J. G. W., 1913.