Nathan Covington Brooks Biography

Nathan Covington Brooks (August 12, 1809 – October 6, 1898) was an educator, historian, and poet born in West Nottingham, Cecil County, Maryland, U.S. Brooks was the first principal of Baltimore City College, the third oldest public high school in the United States, and the only president of the Baltimore Female College, the first institution of higher education for women in Maryland. He also was the owner of the The American Museum, a literary magazine, in which he published several works of the famed poet Edgar Allan Poe, and the author of several textbooks on classical literature. Brooks died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Throughout his career as an educator, Brooks contributed poetry and prose writings to various literary magazines. Among the literary magazines that Brooks submitted works to, were Burton's Gentleman's Magazine, Graham's Magazine, the New York Mirror, and the Southern Literary Messenger. Brooks also wrote several anthologies of poetry, including Scriptural Anthology, which was published in 1837 and The Literary Amaranth, which was published in 1840. Poe wrote an ambivalent review of Brooks' Scriptural Anthology, which appeared in Graham's Magazine in December 1841. In his review, Poe wrote, "among many inferior compositions of length, there were several shorter pieces of great merit;—for example 'Shelley's Obsequies' and 'The Nicthanthes'."Poe was also critical of Brooks' comic works, while praising his more serious prose.

In addition to his poetry and prose, Brooks authored several textbooks, which focused mainly on classical literature, and a few popular history texts. These included First Lessons in Latin, published in 1845, First Lessons in Greek, published in 1846, A Complete History Of The Mexican War, published in 1849, and The History of the Church. Brooks also translated and published several editions of the works of Ovid, Caesar, and Virgil.