father. Coolbrith said that his attentions led to the breakup of his marriage. Duncan's mother left San Francisco and settled her four children in Oakland, little knowing that Coolbrith would soon meet one of her children, and help the young dancer develop a wider knowledge of the world through reading. Duncan wrote in her autobiography that, as a librarian, Coolbrith was always pleased with the youthful dancer's book choices, and that Duncan did not find out until later that Coolbrith was "evidently the great passion of [Joseph Duncan's] life". Coolbrith's nephew Henry Frank Peterson came to work with her at the library, and began to organize the books into a faceted classification scheme that she specified, one which used one- and two-digit numbers to stand for general subjects, and three-digit numbers to indicate individual books in that subject. Before this, Coolbrith had resisted library trustee attempts to classify the books; she had wished to continue the reading-room atmosphere that she had established. In 1881, Coolbrith's poetry was published in book form, entitled A Perfect Day, and Other Poems. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, after Coolbrith's publisher sent him a copy, said "I know that California has at least one poet." Of the poems, he said "I have been reading them with delight." Yale poet Edward Rowland Sill, professor at the University of California and a keen critic of American literature, gave Coolbrith a letter of introduction that he wished her to send to publisher Henry Holt. It said, simply, "Miss Ina Coolbrith, one of our few really literary persons in California, and the writer of many lovely poems; in fact, the most genuine singer the West has yet produced." Quaker poet and former abolitionist John Greenleaf Whittier wrote to Coolbrith from Amesbury, Massachusetts, to share his opinion that her "little volume" of poetry, "which has found such favor with all who have seen it on this side of the Rocky mountains", should be republished on the East Coast. He told her "there is no verse on the Pacific Slope which has the fine quality of thine." Beginning as early as 1865 in San Francisco, Coolbrith held literary meetings at her home, hosting readings of poetry, and topical discussions, in the tradition of European salons. She helped writers such as Gelett Burgess and Laura Redden Searing gain wider notice. Once warmly social with her, in the 1880s Ambrose Bierce turned his caustic pen