 Longfellow spent several years translating Dante Alighieri 's Divine Comedy . To aid him in perfecting the translation and reviewing proofs , he invited friends to weekly meetings every Wednesday starting in 1864 . The " Dante Club " , as it was called , regularly included William Dean Howells , James Russell Lowell , Charles Eliot Norton and other occasional guests . The full three @-@ volume translation was published in the spring of 1867 , though Longfellow would continue to revise it , and went through four printings in its first year . By 1868 , Longfellow 's annual income was over $ 48 @,@ 000 . In 1874 , Samuel Cutler Ward helped him sell the poem " The Hanging of the Crane " to the New York Ledger for $ 3 @,@ 000 ; it was the highest price ever paid for a poem . 
