Authors and Friends

A judge calls Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s first poem “a very stiff production”—while its young author sits silently in the corner. Years later, the lilacs of Cambridge still seem to announce his presence.

In nineteenth-century Maine and Cambridge, Annie Fields gathers intimate glimpses of the poet: the tender child who could never shoot another robin, the tireless Bowdoin student, and the friend whose differences drew Nathaniel Hawthorne closer. Longfellow’s verses meet sharp criticism, while his father urges him to consider a profession; still, the young scholar steals every possible hour for reading and writing. Beneath the fragrance of lilacs and the warmth of literary friendship lies a question of resolve: will he give up poetry for a safer path?

With centuries of literature, it's inevitable that some will fall through the cracks. We hunt down public domain works and restore them so they're not lost to the world.

Who are we? We're Cairn Press. Our background is in design, publishing, typography, and technology. These skills fuel our mission to create the highest quality Public Domain eBooks available online, at an affordable price. We give them the treatment they deserve; our proprietary process restores books for a better overall user experience in design, readability, and e-reader compatibility.