NEW ENGLAND LEGENDS AND FOLK LORE.
By SAMUEL ADAMS DRAKE,
Author of “Old Landmarks of ‘Boston’ and ‘Middlesex,’ ” “Around the Hub,” etc.
One volume, 12mo, cloth, illustrated. Price, $2.00.
This volume brings together, for the first time, the scattered Legendary and Folk Lore of New England. No subject is so thoroughly fascinating as this is, while very few indeed afford materials at once so rich, so varied, and so picturesque. It is confidently believed that every one who sees how fertile is the field the author’s research has opened, will now wonder why such a work was not long ago undertaken.
The collection, preservation, and effective presentation of the Legendary Tales of New England is then the purpose of this book; and that purpose presupposes a work of permanent interest and value.
For a work of this character no man is better qualified than Mr. Samuel Adams Drake, the author who has already a high reputation as a writer of History, Biography, and Travel, and who is thoroughly at home in any and every phase of Old New England Life. His “Old Landmarks of Boston,” his “Nooks and Corners of the New England Coast,” are unique works of their kind, to which his “New England Legends” will unquestionably be the appropriate companion and claimant for public favor.
Having diligently searched out the origin of the Legendary Tales that compose this volume, Mr. Drake’s method has been to rewrite them in an entertaining manner for his readers of to-day; and as some of these pieces have been the theme of poetry and romance, he has placed the prose and poetic versions side by side, in order that the thousands to whom “The Scarlet Letter,” “The Buccaneer,” or “The Skeleton in Armor” are as familiar as household words, may have as ready access to the truth as hitherto they have had to the romance of history.
In this way many of the poetical gems of such authors as Longfellow, Whittier, Holmes, Dana, Lowell, Brainard, Sigourney, and others, are newly interpreted for the public, besides going to enrich the collection. Motley, Hawthorne, Sir Walter Scott, Austin, the Mathers,—whoever in fact may have drawn upon this subject for inspiration,—are quoted for its illustration.