page_title: Paul Revere's Ride
section_title: Composition and publication history
hierarchical_section_title: Paul Revere's Ride / Composition and publication history
caption_attribution_description: English: Three-quarter portrait painting of American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882), facing front, slightly to right, with right arm at side and left arm bend and leaning on a high desk. By American artist Thomas Buchanan Read (1822-1872), dated 1860. Signed and dated on bottom left. *42M-1684, Houghton Library, Harvard University
context_page_description: "Paul Revere's Ride" is a poem by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow that commemorates the actions of American patriot Paul Revere on April 18, 1775, although with significant inaccuracies. It was first published in the January 1861 issue of The Atlantic Monthly. It was later retitled "The Landlord's Tale" in the collection Tales of a Wayside Inn.
context_section_description: Longfellow was inspired to write the poem after visiting the Old North Church and climbing its tower on April 5, 1860. He began writing the poem the next day. It was first published in the January 1861 issue of The Atlantic Monthly. It was later re-published in Longfellow's Tales of a Wayside Inn as "The Landlord's Tale" in 1863. The poem served as the first in a series of 22 narratives bundled as a collection, similar to Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, and was published in three installments over 10 years.
  Longfellow's family had a connection to the historical Paul Revere. His maternal grandfather, Peleg Wadsworth, was Revere's commander on the Penobscot Expedition.
caption: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in 1860, the year he wrote "Paul Revere's Ride", painted by Thomas Buchanan Read
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