Thomas Bulfinch

Thomas Bulfinch was born in 1796 in Newton, Massachusetts, into a prominent Boston family. He graduated from Harvard College in 1814 and later worked as a clerk at the Merchants' Bank of Boston, a position he held for most of his life. Bulfinch's literary legacy rests almost entirely on his three-volume work, "The Age of Fable" (1855), "The Age of Chivalry" (1858), and "Legends of Charlemagne" (1863), which were later combined and published as "Bulfinch's Mythology." His accessible prose made classical and medieval mythology available to a broad American audience, and the book became a staple in schools and homes. Bulfinch died in 1867 in Boston. His work remains in print and continues to introduce readers to the foundational stories of Western culture.