25. Francis Parkman. From a miniature taken about 1844.
26. Francis Parkman. From a photograph taken in 1882.
It is hardly necessary to quote here from the innumerable tributes to so famous an American author as Francis Parkman. Among writers who have bestowed the highest praise upon his writings are such names as James Russell Lowell, Dr. John Fisk, President Charles W. Eliot of Harvard University, George William Curtis, Edward Eggleston, W. D. Howells, James Schouler, and Dr. Conan Doyle, as well as many prominent critics in the United States, in Canada, and in England.
In two respects Francis Parkman was exceptionally fortunate. He chose a theme of the closest interest to his countrymen,—the colonization of the American Continent and the wars for its possession,—and he lived through fifty years of toil to complete his great historical series.
The text of the New Library Edition is that of the latest issue of each work prepared for the press by the distinguished author. He carefully revised and added to several of his works, not through change of views, but in the light of new documentary evidence which his patient research and untiring zeal extracted from the hidden archives of the past. Thus he rewrote and enlarged "The Conspiracy of Pontiac"; the new edition of "La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West" (1878), and the 1885 edition of "Pioneers of France" included very important additions; and a short time before his death he added to "The Old Régime" fifty pages, under the title of "The Feudal Chiefs of Acadia." The New Library Edition therefore includes each work in its final state as perfected by the historian. The indexes have been entirely remade.
LITTLE, BROWN, & CO., Publishers,
254 Washington Street. Boston.