CDV three-quarter seated portrait of American author Henry Wadsworth Longfellow by the London Stereoscopic & Photographic Company, operating at 54 Cheapside and 110 & 108 Regent Street, London, shows the American poet in his later years in a dignified studio composition. Longfellow sits turned slightly to his right, wearing a dark frock coat and waistcoat with a white shirt and cravat, his voluminous white beard and full white hair immediately recognizable. His right arm rests on a small side table, and his posture is relaxed but formal.

The London Stereoscopic Company held the designation of Photographers to H.R.H. The Prince of Wales and operated studios in London, Berlin, Dublin, and New York, producing portraits of international literary and public figures for wide distribution. The reverse bears the elaborate green-printed company imprint, a penciled inscription reading "Longfellow," and dealer notation "6/04/11 / LOCBX / ED."

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) was the most widely read American poet of the nineteenth century, celebrated for The Song of Hiawatha, Evangeline, Paul Revere's Ride, and The Courtship of Miles Standish. He was the first American to have his bust placed in Poets' Corner at Westminster Abbey, a tribute arranged following his death in 1882.