Richard Henry Stoddard (July 2, 1825 - May 12, 1903) was an American critic and poet. Richard Henry Stoddard was born on July 12, 1825, in Hingham, Massachusetts.[1] He spent most of his boyhood in New York City, where he became a blacksmith and later an iron moulder, but in 1849 he gave up his trade and began to write for a living. He contributed to the Union Magazine, the Knickerbocker Magazine, Putnam's Monthly Magazine and the New York Evening Post. In 1853 Nathaniel Hawthorne helped him to secure the appointment of inspector of customs of the Port of New York. He was confidential clerk to George B. McClellan in the New York dock department in 1870-1872, and city librarian of New York in 1874-1875; literary reviewer for the New York World (1860-1870); one of the editors of Vanity Fair; editor of the Aldine (1869-1874), and literary editor of the Mail and Express (1880-1903). He died in New York on the May 12, 1903. More important than his critical was his poetical work, which at its best is sincere, original and marked by delicate fancy, and felicity of form; and his songs have given him a high and permanent place among American lyric poets. His wife, Elizabeth Drew Stoddard was also a novelist. This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.