Library of the Best American Literature
Transcriber’s Notes
The cover image was provided by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
Punctuation has been standardized.
The text may show quotations within quotations, all set off by similar quote marks. The inner quotations have been changed to alternate quote marks for improved readability.
This book has illustrated drop-caps at the start of each chapter. These illustrations may adversely affect the pronunciation of the word with screen-readers or not display properly in some handheld devices.
This book was written in a period when many words had not become standardized in their spelling. Words may have multiple spelling variations or inconsistent hyphenation in the text. These have been left unchanged unless indicated with a Transcriber’s Note.
The symbol ‘‡’ indicates the description in parenthesis has been added to an illustration. This may be needed if there is no caption or if the caption does not describe the image adequately.
Footnotes are identified in the text with a superscript number and are shown immediately below the paragraph in which they appear.
Transcriber’s Notes are used when making corrections to the text or to provide additional information for the modern reader. These notes are identified by ♦♠♥♣ symbols in the text and are shown immediately below the paragraph in which they appear.
REPRESENTATIVES OF AMERICAN LITERATURE.
LIBRARY
OF THE
Best American Literature
CONTAINING
The Lives of our Authors in Story Form
Their Portraits, their Homes, and their Personal Traits
How they Worked and What they Wrote
Choice Selections from Eminent Writers
EMBRACING
GREAT AMERICAN POETS AND NOVELISTS, FOREMOST WOMEN IN AMERICAN LETTERS, DISTINGUISHED CRITICS AND ESSAYISTS, OUR NATIONAL HUMORISTS, NOTED JOURNALISTS AND MAGAZINE CONTRIBUTORS, POPULAR WRITERS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE, GREAT ORATORS AND PUBLIC LECTURERS
ELEGANTLY ILLUSTRATED WITH HALF TONE PORTRAITS
And Photographs of Authors’ Homes, together with Many Other Illustrations in the Text
MONARCH BOOK COMPANY,
Successors to and formerly L. P. Miller & Co.,
CHICAGO, ILL. PHILADELPHIA, PA.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1897, by
W. E. SCULL,
in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
All rights reserved.
ALL PERSONS ARE WARNED NOT TO INFRINGE UPON OUR COPYRIGHT BY USING EITHER THE MATTER OR THE PICTURES IN THIS VOLUME.
LITERATURE OF AMERICA.
PART [1.] Great Poets of America [2.] Our Most Noted Novelists [3.] Famous Women Novelists [4.] Representative Women Poets of America [5.] Well-known Essayists, Critics and Sketch Writers [6.] Great American Historians and Biographers [7.] Our National Humorists [8.] Popular Writers for Young People [9.] Noted Journalists and Magazine Contributors [10.] Great Orators and Popular Lecturers [11.] Famous Women Orators and Reformers [12.] Miscellaneous Masterpieces and Choice Gems
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.
Our obligation to the following publishers is respectfully and gratefully acknowledged, since, without the courtesies and assistance of these publishers and a number of the living authors, it would have been impossible to issue this volume.
Copyright selections from the following authors are used by the permission of and special arrangement with MESSRS. HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO., their authorized publishers:—Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry W. Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell, Bayard Taylor, Maurice Thompson, Colonel John Hay, Bret Harte, William Dean Howells, Edward Bellamy, Charles Egbert Craddock (Miss Murfree), Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (Ward), Octave Thanet (Miss French), Alice Cary, Phœbe Cary, Charles Dudley Warner, E. C. Stedman, James Parton, John Fiske and Sarah Jane Lippincott.
TO THE CENTURY CO., we are indebted for selections from Richard Watson Gilder, James Whitcomb Riley and Francis Richard Stockton.
TO CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS, for extracts from Eugene Field.
TO HARPER & BROTHERS, for selections from Will Carleton, General Lew Wallace, W. D. Howells, Thomas Nelson Page, John L. Motley, Charles Follen Adams and Lyman Abbott.
TO ROBERTS BROTHERS, for selections from Edward Everett Hale, Helen Hunt Jackson, Louise Chandler Moulton and Louisa M. Alcott.
TO ORANGE, JUDD & CO., for extracts from Edward Eggleston.
TO DODD, MEAD & CO., for selections from E. P. Roe, Marion Harland (Mrs. Terhune), Amelia E. Barr and Martha Finley.
TO D. APPLETON & CO., for Wm. Cullen Bryant and John Bach McMaster.
TO MACMILLAN & CO., for F. Marion Crawford.
TO HORACE L. TRAUBEL, Executor, for Walt Whitman.
TO ESTES & LAURIAT, for Gail Hamilton (Mary Abigail Dodge).
TO LITTLE, BROWN & CO., for Francis Parkman.
TO FUNK & WAGNALLS, for Josiah Allen’s Wife (Miss Holley).
TO LEE & SHEPARD, for Yawcob Strauss (Charles Follen Adams), Oliver Optic (William T. Adams) and Mary A. Livermore.
TO J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO., for Bill Nye (Edgar Wilson Nye).
TO GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS, for Uncle Remus (Joel C. Harris).
TO TICKNOR & CO., for Julian Hawthorne.
TO PORTER & COATES, for Edward Ellis and Horatio Alger.
TO WILLIAM F. GILL & CO., for Whitelaw Reid.
TO C. H. HUDGINS & CO., for Henry W. Grady.
TO THE “COSMOPOLITAN MAGAZINE,” for Julian Hawthorne.
TO T. B. PETERSON & BROS., for Frances Hodgson Burnett.
TO JAS. R. OSGOOD & CO., for Jane Goodwin Austin.
TO GEO. R. SHEPARD, for Thomas Wentworth Higginson.
TO J. LEWIS STACKPOLE, for John L. Motley.
Besides the above, we are under special obligation to a number of authors who kindly furnished, in answer to our request, selections which they considered representative of their writings.
American Authors
Hawthorne • Cooper • H. B. Stowe • Prescott • Irving