THE

GREAT HEROES

AND LEGENDS

OF HENRY

WADSWORTH

LONGFELLOW

The fun starts with a birthday poetry celebration February 27, 2010!

Longfellow's Wayside Inn is honored to host another community-wide read of the poems of this country's greatest poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.  The 2010 Longfellow Big Read will explore The Great Heroes and Legends of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow — from Paul Revere and Miles Standish to Evangeline and Hiawatha.  The stories are compelling and their impact on North American culture has been indelible and undeniable.

In 2010, our Big Read will go national, with other Big Read communities choosing to read Longfellow from Longfellow's birthday on February 27, 2010 to the end of May 2010. We are excited to have the Caldwell Public Library in Caldwell, New Jersey share their fun with us. We have extended the Big Read fun beyond Sudbury this year as well and welcome our collaborators in Marlborough and Framingham: the Marlboro Public Schools, Framingham Adult ESL, and the New England Wildflower Society.

We have a lot of exciting events that we will be posting in the next few weeks. So stay tuned and check back often for the makings of an exciting year!

About the Longfellow Big Read ...

in 2008, Longfellow’s Wayside Inn was honored to be the first grant recipient in a pilot initiative created by the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with the Poetry Foundation to celebrate great American poets and the nation’s historic poetry locales. From Longfellow’s birthday on February 27, 2008, to Patriot’s Day, April 19, 2008, the Wayside Inn sponsored a community read of the works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Public events began at the Martha-Mary Chapel at the Wayside Inn on February 27th with Dana Gioia, Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, speaking on the poet’s life and works. Events were held at the Wayside Inn as well as at the Goodnow Library, the Sudbury Public Schools, and the Sudbury Senior Center.

Our goal is to reenergize community interest in the importance of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow as this country’s greatest poet and to publicize Longfellow's Tales of a Wayside Inn within the larger context of all of Longfellow’s works. Programming includes book discussions, lectures, classes, and special events that can bring the readers together for the enjoyment of historic poetry

Check out the Upcoming Events calendar to the right for an overview of what the scheduled events were, or the more detailed Events page.

This website offers a wide range of resources to help you learn more about the life and poetry of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

The Book Discussion Group page lists resources for group leaders and participants who want to learn more about Longfellow. This page lists titles suitable for adults, young adults, and children. We encourage everyone to read Longfellow during their lunch hour, to their families at night, before the start of community meetings, and together at one of the many book discussion groups that we will hold.

Teacher Resources include Reader’s Guides and Teacher's Guides that will bemade available to all program participants.

We hope that everyone enjoy reading and learning about Longfellow and his works. To that end copies of Dover Thrift Editions as well as the other recommended Longfellow titles will be made available at the Wayside Inn Giftshop. Please help support the ongoing historic preservation of the oldest Inn in the country by buying your Longfellow books at the Inn!

We hope that you will explore the resources we have made available on this site: read the poem of the week and don’t forget to browse the audio files in our online audio library of Longfellow recordings. Because our goal was to make Longfellow accessible to everyone, all lecture events will be recorded and broadcast on Sudbury Cable.  The Goodnow Library in Sudbury has a full set of recordings available of the 2008 events.