proximity, intermarried, and remained close for several generations. Upon his death in 1656, Standish's widow, Barbara, appointed John Alden to take inventory of Standish's estate. Composition and publication history The first reference to the poem recorded in Longfellow's journal is dated December 29, 1857, where the project is referred to as "Priscilla". By March 1 the next year, it was renamed The Courtship of Miles Standish. The ballad was very popular in nineteenth-century America. It was published in book form on October 16, 1858, and it sold 25,000 copies after two months. Reportedly, 10,000 copies were sold in London in a single day. Standish is memorialized in a low relief sculpture of six characters from Longfellow's epic poems executed by Daniel Chester French and installed at Longfellow Park, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, located in front of Longfellow's former home, now a U.S. National Historic Site maintained by the National Park Service. Poetic meter Courtship of Miles Standish is written in dactylic hexameter, the same meter used in classical epic poetry such as Homer's Iliad and Odyssey and Vergil's Aeneid. Longfellow used the same meter in his poem Evangeline. Cultural references The story of Standish, Alden, and Mullins is referenced in A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. A 1940 Merrie Melodies cartoon depicts their own version of the story in The Hardship of Miles Standish. See also The Courtship of Miles Standish (1923 film) References External links The Courtship of Miles Standish, and Other Poems, 1858 edition, at books.google.com. — includes this poem. Plot summary and historic background 1858 poems American poems Poetry by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Narrative poems Plymouth Colony Poems adapted into films