Whittier knew that he had written too much and that much of what he had written for the abolitionist movement had been hastily composed and for ends that were essentially political. Nevertheless, his collected poetry includes a core of excellent work, at the head of which stands his masterpiece,
Snow-Bound. A Winter Idyl (1866), a lovingly imaginative re-creation of the good life in rural New England. This work--together with "Telling the Bees," "Ichabod," "Massachusetts to Virginia," "Skipper Ireson's Ride," "The Rendition," "The Double-Headed Snake of Newbury," and a dozen or so others--suggests not only the New England source of Whittier's finest achievements but also the predominant appeal that folk material had for his imagination.
Whittier's youth--indeed, his whole life--was deeply rooted in the values, history, and traditions of rural Essex County, Massachusetts. Born on 17 December 1807 near Haverhill, Massachusetts, in a farmhouse that his great-great-grandfather had built in the seventeenth century, John Greenleaf Whittier grew up in a poor but respectable household characterized by hard work, Quaker piety, and warm family affection. A more distinctive part of his background was the rich tradition of folklore in the region; tales of witches and ghosts told on winter evenings by the fire exercised the young Whittier's imagination.
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