samuel kettell (1800 - 1855)
Samuel Kettell was an American writer and editor.
He was an accomplished self-taught linguist and mastered fourteen languages. His humorous publications in the Boston Courier under pseudonyms attracted attention and in 1848 he became the permanent editor-in-chief of this newspaper.
Kettell's major work, however, was Samuel Griswold Goodrich's Samples of American Poetry with Critical and Biographical Notes, which was published in 1829. This comprehensive catalog is the first bibliography of early American poetry, and includes the works of nearly 200 poets before 1829.Kettell provided biographical sketches of each writer, from Cotton Mather to Francis Scott Key, Washington Irving, and Sarah Josepha Hale.
In addition, Kettell published A Personal Narrative of Columbus's First Voyage (1827) and Accounts of the Spanish Inquisition (1828).
