- Langdon Smith
Langdon Smith (
4 January 1858 -8 April 1908 ) was an American journalist, writer and poet.Born in
Kentucky he went to school in Louisville. His letters concerning the Apache and Comanche wars, in which he served as a trooper, gained him his first newspaper position.In 1894 he married Marie Antionette Wright, and soon after went to Cuba, reporting for the "New York Herald" on the guerilla efforts of
Antonio Maceo Grajales . He later returned to Cuba, at the outbreak of theSpanish-American War , reporting for the "New York Journal".He wrote short stories and a novel "On the Pan Handle" but is most famous as the author of the love poem "Evolution", sometimes sub-titled or mistakenly called "A Tadpole and a Fish".The Cosmos Club (1999) [http://www.cosmos-club.org/web/journals/1999/myrianthopoulos.html The Philosophic Origins of Science] . Based on a lecture by scientist Ntinos C. Myrianthopoulos. Retrieved August 30, 2006.]
The first few stanzas of this famous poem were written and published in the "New York Herald" in 1895. It was worked upon for many years and later published in full in the "New York Journal" sometime before 1906, and posthumously published in illustrated and annotated book form as "Evolution : A Fantasy" (1909).
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