FAMILY LIBRARY.
The publishers of the Family Library, anxious to obtain and to deserve the favourable opinion of the public, with pleasure embrace the present opportunity to express their warm and sincere thanks for the liberal patronage which has been bestowed upon their undertaking, and their determination to do all that lies in their power to merit its continuance. For some time previous to the commencement of the Family Library, they had entertained thoughts and wishes of reducing the quantity of merely fictitious writings, which the reading public had made it their interest to issue from their press; and they were conscious that this could only be done by substituting for them works that should be equally entertaining and more instructive. The difficulty was to find an adequate supply of books possessing these requisites. At this time the attention of English philanthropists and authors was strongly turned to the general dissemination of useful knowledge by means of popular abridgments, convenient in form, afforded at low prices, and as much as possible simplified in style, so as to be accessible as well to the means as to the comprehension of “the people,” in contradistinction to the educated and the wealthy. The result has been the production of numerous collections, embracing well written works treating of almost every department of art and science, and, by their simplicity, clearness, and entire freedom from technicality, exactly calculated to attract and compensate the attention of the general reader. From these collections, with additions and improvements, and such alterations as were necessary to adapt the work to the taste and wants of the American public, Harper’s Family Library has been composed; and it is with pride and pleasure that the publishers acknowledge the distinguished favour with which it has been received. The approbation and support that have already been bestowed upon it are greater than have ever been conferred upon any work of a similar character published in the United States; and the sale of every succeeding volume still demonstrates its continually increasing popularity. In several instances gentlemen of wealth and of excellent judgment have been so much pleased with the character of the Library, that they have purchased numbers of complete sets as appropriate and valuable gifts to the families of their less opulent relatives; and others have unsolicited, been active in their endeavours to extend its circulation among their friends and acquaintances. With these strong inducements to persevere, the publishers are resolved to prosecute their undertaking with additional zeal, energy, and circumspection. What has been done they desire their patrons to consider rather in the light of an experiment, than a specimen of what they hope and intend to accomplish: they freely and gratefully acknowledge that the circulation and popularity of the Family Library are now such as to justify them in disregarding expense, and to demand from them every care and every exertion. It shall be their study to make such arrangements as shall warrant them in assuring the friends and patrons of the Library that the forthcoming volumes, instead of decreasing in interest and value, will be found still more deserving of the support and approbation of the public than those which have preceded them.
In order to render it thus meritorious, the proprietors intend incorporating in it hereafter, selections of the best productions from the various other Libraries and Miscellanies now publishing in Europe. Several well-known authors have been engaged to prepare for it also works of an American character; and the Family Library, when completed, will include a volume on every useful and interesting subject not embraced in the other “Libraries” now preparing by the same publishers. The entire series will be the production of authors of eminence, who have acquired celebrity by their literary labours, and whose names, as they appear in succession, will afford the surest guarantee for the satisfactory manner in which the subjects will be treated.
With these arrangements, the publishers flatter themselves that they will be able to offer to the American public a work of unparalleled merit and cheapness, forming a body of literature which will obtain the praise of having instructed many, and amused all; and, above every other species of eulogy, of being fit to be introduced to the domestic circle without reserve or exception.
The Dramatic Series of the Family Library will consist principally of the works of those Dramatists who flourished contemporaneously with Shakspeare, in which all such passages as are inconsistent with modern delicacy will be omitted. The number of volumes will be limited, and they will be bound and numbered in such a manner as to render it not essentially necessary to obtain them to complete a set of the Family Library.
The following opinions, selected from highly respectable Journals, will enable those who are unacquainted with the Family Library to form an estimate of its merits. Numerous other notices, equally favourable, and from sources equally respectable, might be presented if deemed necessary.
“The Family Library.—A very excellent, and always entertaining Miscellany.”—Edinburgh Review, No. 103.
“The Family Library presents, in a compendious and convenient form, well-written histories of popular men, kingdoms, sciences, &c. arranged and edited by able writers, and drawn entirely from the most correct and accredited authorities. It is, as it professes to be, a Family Library, from which, at little expense, a household may prepare themselves for a consideration of those elementary subjects of education and society, without a due acquaintance with which neither man nor woman has claim to be well bred, or to take their proper place among those with whom they abide.”—Charleston Gazette.
“We have repeatedly borne testimony to the utility of this work. It is one of the best that has ever been issued from the American press, and should be in the library of every family desirous of treasuring up useful knowledge.”—Boston Statesman.
“The Family Library should be in the hands of every person. Thus far it has treated of subjects interesting to all, condensed in a perspicuous and agreeable style.... We have so repeatedly spoken of the merits of the design of this work, and of the able manner in which it is edited, that on this occasion we will only repeat our conviction, that it is worthy a place in every library in the country, and will prove one of the most useful as it is one of the most interesting publications which has ever issued from the American press.”—N. Y. Courier & Enquirer.
“The Family Library is, what its name implies, a collection of various original works of the best kind, containing reading, useful and interesting to the family circle. It is neatly printed, and should be in every family that can afford it—the price being moderate.”—New-England Palladium.
“The Family Library is, in all respects, a valuable work.”—Pennsylvania Inquirer.
“We are pleased to see that the publishers have obtained sufficient encouragement to continue their valuable Family Library.”—Baltimore Republican.
“We recommend the whole set of the Family Library as one of the cheapest means of affording pleasing instruction, and imparting a proper pride in books, with which we are acquainted.”—Philadelphia U. S. Gazette.
“It will prove instructing and amusing to all classes. We are pleased to learn that the works comprising this Library have become, as they ought to be, quite popular among the heads of Families.”—N. Y. Gazette.
“It is the duty of every person having a family to put this excellent Library into the hands of his children.”—N. Y. Mercantile Advertiser.
“We have so often recommended this enterprising and useful publication (the Family Library), that we can here only add, that each successive number appears to confirm its merited popularity.”—N. Y. American.
“It is so emphatically what it purports to be, that we are anxious to see it in every family.—It is alike interesting and useful to all classes of readers.”—Albany Evening Journal.
“The little volumes of this series truly comport with their title, and are in themselves a Family Library.”—N. Y. Commercial Advertiser.
“We have met with no work more interesting and deservedly popular than this valuable Family Library.”—Monthly Repository.
“The plan of the Family Library must be acceptable to the American reading community.”—N. Y. Journal of Commerce.
“To all portions of the community the entire series may be warmly recommended.”—American Traveller.
“It is a delightful publication.”—Truth Teller.
PROSPECTUS
OF THE
LIBRARY OF SELECT NOVELS.
Fictitious composition is now admitted to form an extensive and important portion of literature. Well-wrought novels take their rank by the side of real narratives, and are appealed to as evidence in all questions concerning man. In them the customs of countries, the transitions and shades of character, and even the very peculiarities of costume and dialect, are curiously preserved; and the imperishable spirit that surrounds and keeps them for the use of successive generations renders the rarities for ever fresh and green. In them human life is laid down as on a map. The strong and vivid exhibitions of passion and of character which they furnish, acquire and maintain the strongest hold upon the curiosity, and, it may be added, the affections of every class of readers; for not only is entertainment in all the various moods of tragedy and comedy provided in their pages, but he who reads them attentively may often obtain, without the bitterness and danger of experience, that knowledge of his fellow-creatures which but for such aid could, in the majority of cases, be only acquired at a period of life too late to turn it to account.
This “Library of Select Novels” will embrace none but such as have received the impress of general approbation, or have been written by authors of established character; and the publishers hope to receive such encouragement from the public patronage as will enable them in the course of time to produce a series of works of uniform appearance, and including most of the really valuable novels and romances that have been or shall be issued from the modern English and American press.
There is scarcely any question connected with the interests of literature which has been more thoroughly discussed and investigated than that of the utility or evil of novel reading. In its favour much may be and has been said, and it must be admitted that the reasonings of those who believe novels to be injurious, or at least useless, are not without force and plausibility. Yet, if the arguments against novels are closely examined, it will be found that they are more applicable in general to excessive indulgence in the pleasures afforded by the perusal of fictitious adventures than to the works themselves; and that the evils which can be justly ascribed to them arise almost exclusively, not from any peculiar noxious qualities that can be fairly attributed to novels as a species, but from those individual works which in their class must be pronounced to be indifferent.
But even were it otherwise—were novels of every kind, the good as well as the bad, the striking and animated not less than the puerile, indeed liable to the charge of enfeebling or perverting the mind; and were there no qualities in any which might render them instructive as well as amusing—the universal acceptation which they have ever received, and still continue to receive, from all ages and classes of men, would prove an irresistible incentive to their production. The remonstrances of moralists and the reasonings of philosophy have ever been, and will still be found, unavailing against the desire to partake of an enjoyment so attractive. Men will read novels; and therefore the utmost that wisdom and philanthropy can do is to cater prudently for the public appetite, and, as it is hopeless to attempt the exclusion of fictitious writings from the shelves of the library, to see that they are encumbered with the least possible number of such as have no other merit than that of novelty.
“The works of our elder dramatists, as hitherto edited, are wholly unfit to be placed in the hands of young persons, or of females of any age, or even to be thought of for a moment as furniture for the drawing-room table, and the parlour-window, or to form the solace of a family circle at the fireside. What lady will ever confess that she has read and understood Massinger, or Ford, or even Beaumont and Fletcher? There is hardly a single piece in any of those authors which does not contain more abominable passages than the very worst of modern panders would ever dream of hazarding in print—and there are whole plays in Ford, and in Beaumont and Fletcher, the very essence and substance of which is, from beginning to end, one mass of pollution. The works, therefore, of these immortal men have hitherto been library, not drawing-room books;—and we have not a doubt, that, down to this moment, they have been carefully excluded, in toto, from the vast majority of those English houses in which their divine poetry, if stripped of its deforming accompaniments, would have been ministering the most effectually to the instruction and delight of our countrymen, and, above all, of our fair countrywomen.
“We welcome, therefore, the appearance of the Dramatic Series of the Family Library with no ordinary feelings of satisfaction. We are now sure that, ere many months elapse, the productions of those distinguished bards—all of them that is worthy of their genius, their taste, and the acceptation of a moral and refined people—will be placed within reach of every circle from which their very names have hitherto been sufficient to exclude them, in a shape such as must command confidence, and richly reward it. The text will be presented pure and correct, wherever it is fit to be presented at all—every word and passage offensive to the modest ear will be omitted; and means adopted, through the notes, of preserving the sense and story entire, in spite of these necessary erasures. If this were all, it would be a great deal—but the editors undertake much more. They will furnish, in their preliminary notices, and in their notes, clear accounts of the origin, structure, and object of every piece, and the substance of all that sound criticism has brought to their illustration, divested, however, of the personal squabbles and controversies which so heavily and offensively load the bottoms of the pages in the best existing editions of our dramatic worthies. Lives of the authors will be given; and if they be all drawn up with the skill and elegance which mark the Life of Massinger, in the first volume, these alone will form a standard addition to our biographical literature.”—Literary Gazette.
“The early British Drama forms so important a portion of our literature, that a ‘Family Library’ would be incomplete without it. A formidable obstacle to the publication of our early plays, however, consists in the occasional impurity of their dialogue. The editors of the Family Library have, therefore, judiciously determined on publishing a selection of old plays, omitting all such passages as are inconsistent with modern delicacy. The task of separation requires great skill and discretion, but these qualities we have no apprehension of not finding, in the fullest degree requisite, in the editors, who, by this purifying process, will perform a service both to the public and to the authors, whom they will thereby draw forth from unmerited obscurity.”—Asiatic Journal.
“The first number of the ‘Dramatic Series’ of this work commences with the Plays of Massinger; and the lovers of poetry and the drama may now, for the first time, possess the works of all the distinguished writers of the renowned Elizabethan age, at a cost which most pockets can bear; in a form and style, too, which would recommend them to the most tasteful book collector. A portrait of Massinger adorns the first volume; and what little is known of the dramatist is given in a short account of his life.”—Examiner.