The Biglow Papers

Nine numbered papers in broad Yankee dialect carry the argument. Hosea Biglow, a young farmer from the invented town of Jaalam, Massachusetts, goes down to Boston, gets worked over by a recruiting sergeant, refuses him, and comes home to write verses calling the war with Mexico a scheme to widen slavery. His father mails them to the Boston Courier. Birdofredum Sawin enlists instead, swallows every promise of manifest destiny, and writes back from the field having lost an arm, a leg and an eye. Framing the lot is Parson Homer Wilbur of Jaalam, whose grave prefaces, footnotes and glossary send up pulpit and press together. Lowell ran the pieces in the Courier and the National Anti-Slavery Standard from 1846 to 1848, and the 1848 collection sold its first 1,500 copies in a week.