POETRY
POE.—His best poems are short, and may soon be read. They are Annabel
Lee, To One in Paradise, The Raven, The Haunted Palace, The
Conqueror Worm, Ulalume, Israfel, Lenore, and The Bells.
HAYNE.—A Dream of the South Winds, Aspects of the Pines, The Woodland
Phases, and A Storm in the Distance.
TIMROD.—Spring, The Lily Confidante, An Exotic, The Cotton Boll, and Carolina.
LANIER.—The Marshes of Glynn, Sunrise, The Song of the Chattahoochee, Tampa Robins, Love and Song, The Stirrup Cup, and The Symphony.
RYAN.—The Conquered Banner, and The Sword of Robert Lee.
TABB.—Fourteen of his complete poems may be found on two pages (489 and 490) of Stedman's An American Anthology. Much of Tabb's best work is contained in his little volume entitled Poems (1894).
CAWEIN.—The Whippoorwill, There are Fairies, The Shadow Garden, One
Day and Another, In Solitary Places, A Twilight Moth, To a Wind
Flower, Beauty and Art, A Prayer for Old Age.
The best two volumes of general selections from Cawein's verse have been published in England and given the titles, Kentucky Poems (1902), 264 pages, edited with an excellent Introduction by Edmund Gosse, and New Poems (1909), 248 pages. His best nature poetry will be found in his single American volume of selections, entitled Poems, Selected by the Author (1911).
PROSE
POE.—Poe's best short story is The Fall of the House of Usher, but it is better to begin with such favorites as either The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Gold-Bug, or A Descent into the Maelstrom. There are many poor editions of Poe's Tales. Cody's The Best Tales of Edgar Allan Poe and Macmillan's Pocket Classics edition may be recommended. The best part of his critical remarks on short-story writing is quoted in this text, p. 299. A part of his essay, The Poetic Principle, is given in Trent.
SIMMS.—Mims and Payne give (pp. 50-69) a good selection from The
Yemassee, describing an Indian episode in the war of 1715, between the
Spaniards and the Indians on the one hand, and the English on the other.
Trent gives (pp. 186-189) from The Partisan, a scene laid at the time of
the Revolutionary War.
HARRIS.—Read anywhere from Uncle Remus, his Songs, and his Sayings (1880), Nights with Uncle Remus (1881), Uncle Remus and his Friends (1892). An excellent selection, Brother Billy Goat eats his Dinner, is given in Trent.
CABLE.—Madame Delphine and Jean-ah-Poquelin, two of Cable's best short stories, are published under the title, Old Creole Days.
PAGE, ALLEN, AND CRADDOCK.—From Page, read either Marse Chan or Meh
Lady; from Allen, King Solomon of Kentucky, and Two Gentlemen of
Kentucky, from Flute and Violin, or The Kentucky Cardinal, or The
Choir Invisible; from Craddock, selections from Down the Ravine, In the
Tennessee Mountains, or The Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountain.