Very, Jones

Transcendentalist poet and friend of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Nathaniel Hawthorne, Jones Very is best known for his intensely pious religious sonnets. Born in Salem in 1813 and died here in 1880, he distinguished himself at Harvard as an essayist but later his interest turned to poetry. His importance as a poet is linked to the Transcendentalist movement. At his death, his poetry was largely unknown. In the early 1990s his poems, more than 1,000 in number, were collected and edited by Helen Deese.

See Also

• Jones Very: Complete poems ed. by Helen R. Deese

• Nineteenth-century American poetry ed. by A. Robert Lee

• "Unknown poet an Emerson favorite", Salem Evening News, July 19, 2000