Nathaniel Parker Willis

Nathaniel Parker Willis (January 20, 1806 – January 20, 1867), also known as N. P. Willis, was an American author, poet and editor who worked with several notable American writers including Edgar Allan Poe and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He became the highest-paid magazine writer of his day. For a time, he was the employer of former slave and future writer Harriet Jacobs. His brother was the composer Richard Storrs Willis and his sister Sara wrote under the name Fanny Fern.

Born in Portland, Maine, Willis came from a family of publishers. His grandfather Nathaniel Willis owned newspapers in Massachusetts and Virginia, and his father Nathaniel Willis was the founder of Youth's Companion, the first newspaper specifically for children. Willis developed an interest in literature while attending Yale College and began publishing poetry. After graduation, he worked as an overseas correspondent for the New York Mirror. He eventually moved to New York and began to build his literary reputation. Working with multiple publications, he was earning about $100 per article and between $5,000 and $10,000 per year. In 1846, he started his own publication, the Home Journal, which was eventually renamed Town & Country. Shortly after, Willis moved to a home on the Hudson River where he lived a semi-retired life until his death in 1867.

Nathaniel Parker

Nathaniel Parker (born 18 May 1962) is a versatile, Olivier Award winning, Tony nominated, English stage and screen actor best known for playing Detective Inspector Thomas "Tommy" Lynley in the BBC crime drama series The Inspector Lynley Mysteries.

Education

Parker joined the National Youth Theatre, and after training at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, became a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1986.

Career

Stage

Parker portrayed Bassanio in Peter Hall's 1989 production of The Merchant of Venice in both London and on Broadway, co-starring with Dustin Hoffman.

In 2000, he played Bob in Rupert Goold's West End revival of David Mamet's Speed-the-Plow.

Parker returned to the stage in 2013 for the Westend production of The Audience, starring Dame Helen Mirren, written by Peter Morgan (The Queen) and directed by Stephen Daldry. The play ran for four months at the Gielgud Theatre in London. It was also transmitted worldwide via National Theatre Live and was seen by more than 110,000 viewers in the UK and USA alone.