For instance, an 1843 letter in the collection sent to Nathaniel Hawthorne, praises his short story, “The Birthmark.”

“Dear Hawthornius,” Longfellow wrote, “not the comet himself can unfold a more glorious tail.”

Other items depict the poet as a “cultural icon,” Gulotta said. Toward the end of his life and after his death in 1882, his image was used to sell cigars, cigarettes, calendars, bookmarks, and greeting cards, according to Gulotta.

Despite being the most popular poet of his time, Longfellow does not currently have a strong following on university campuses, said Gulotta.

“Longfellow is generally considered to be a sentimental poet with little depth by those who read only his popular poems,” he said.

English Department Chair Lawrence Buell, Harvard College professor and the Marquand professor of english, studied Longfellow about ten years ago, but currently, there is little scholarly interest in Longfellow, Morris said. Longfellow is, however, resurfacing as a major literary figure, Gulotta said. The first biography on Longfellow published in three decades will be available this summer.