A prom­inent po­et and au­thor, Low­ell grad­u­at­ed from Har­vard Coll­ege in 1838, and was ad­mit­ted to the bar in 1840. He be­came Pro­fes­sor of Mo­dern Lan­guag­es and Lit­er­a­ture at Har­vard in 1855, suc­ceed­ing Hen­ry Wads­worth Long­fel­low. He ed­it­ed the At­lan­tic Month­ly (1857-1862) and the North Amer­i­can Re­view (1863-1872), and served as Amer­i­can min­is­ter to Spain (1877-1880) and am­bas­sa­dor to Eng­land (1880-1885). His works in­clude:

• The Vi­sion of Sir Laun­fal, 1848
• The Big­low Pa­pers, 1848 & 1862
• Among My Books, 1870 & 1876
• Political Es­says, 1888