HIS work has been designed and prepared with a view to presenting an outline of American literature in such a manner as to stimulate a love for good reading and especially to encourage the study of the lives and writings of our American authors. The plan of this work is unique and original, and possesses certain helpful and interesting features, which—so far as we are aware—have been contemplated by no other single volume.
The first and main purpose of the work is to present to our American homes a mass of wholesome, varied and well-selected reading matter. In this respect it is substantially a volume for the family. America is pre-eminently a country of homes. These homes are the schools of citizenship, and—next to the Bible, which is the foundation of our morals and laws—we need those books which at once entertain and instruct, and, at the same time, stimulate patriotism and pride for our native land.
This book seeks to meet this demand. Four-fifths of our space is devoted exclusively to American literature. Nearly all other volumes of selections are made up chiefly from foreign authors. The reason for this is obvious. Foreign publications until within the last few years have been free of copyright restrictions. Anything might be chosen and copied from them while American authors were protected by law from such outrages. Consequently, American material under forty-two years of age could not be used without the consent of the owner of the copyright. The expense and the difficulty of obtaining these permissions were too great to warrant compilers and publishers in using American material. The constantly growing demand, however, for a work of this class has encouraged the publishers of this volume to undertake the task. The publishers of the works from which these selections are made and many living authors represented have been corresponded with, and it is only through the joint courtesy and co-operation of these many publishers and authors that the production of this volume has been made possible. Due acknowledgment will be found elsewhere. In a number of instances the selections have been made by the authors themselves, who have also rendered other valuable assistance in supplying data and photographs.
The second distinctive point of merit in the plan of the work is the biographical feature, which gives the story of each author’s life separately, treating them both personally and as writers. Longfellow remarked in “Hyperion”—“If you once understand the character of an author the comprehension of his writings becomes easy.” He might have gone further and stated that when we have once read the life of an author his writings become the more interesting. Goethe assures us that “Every author portrays himself in his works even though it be against his will.” The patriarch in the Scriptures had the same thought in his mind when he exclaimed “Oh! that mine enemy had written a book.” Human nature remains the same. Any book takes on a new phase of value and interest to us the moment we know the story of the writer, whether we agree with his statements and theories or not. These biographical sketches, which in every case are placed immediately before the selections from an author, give, in addition to the story of his life, a list of the principal books he has written, and the dates of publication, together with comments on his literary style and in many instances reviews of his best known works. This, with the selections which follow, established that necessary bond of sympathy and relationship which should exist in the mind of the reader between every author and his writings. Furthermore, under this arrangement the biography of each author and the selections from his works compose a complete and independent chapter in the volume, so that the writer may be taken up and studied or read alone, or in connection with others in the particular class to which he belongs.
This brings us to the third point of classification. Other volumes of selections—where they have been classified at all—have usually placed selections of similar character together under the various heads of Narrative and Descriptive, Moral and Religious, Historical, etc. On the contrary, it has appeared to us the better plan in the construction of this volume to classify the authors, rather than, by dividing their selections, scatter the children of one parent in many different quarters. There has been no small difficulty in doing this in the cases of some of our versatile writers. Emerson, for instance, with his poetry, philosophy and essays, and Holmes, with his wit and humor, his essays, his novels and his poetry. Where should they be placed? Summing them up, we find their writings—whether written in stanzas of metred lines or all the way across the page, and whether they talked philosophy or indulged in humor—were predominated by the spirit of poetry. Therefore, with their varied brood, Emerson and Holmes were taken off to the “Poet’s Corner,” which is made all the richer and more enjoyable by the variety of their gems of prose. Hence our classifications and groupings are as Poets, Novelists, Historians, Journalists, Humorists, Essayists, Critics, Orators, etc., placing each author in the department to which he most belongs, enabling the reader to read and compare him in his best element with others of the same class.
Part I., “Great Poets of America,” comprises twenty of our most famous and popular writers of verse. The work necessarily begins with that immortal “Seven Stars” of poesy in the galaxy of our literary heavens—Bryant, Poe, Longfellow, Emerson, Whittier, Holmes and Lowell. Succeeding these are those of lesser magnitude, many of whom are still living and some who have won fame in other fields of literature which divides honors with their poetry. Among these are Bayard Taylor, the noted traveler and poet; N. P. Willis, the most accomplished magazinist of his day; R. H. Stoddard, the critic; Walt Whitman; Maurice Thompson, the scientist; Thomas Bailey Aldrich and Richard Watson Gilder, editors, and Colonel John Hay, politician and statesman. The list closes with that notable group of well-known Western poets, James Whitcomb Riley, Bret Harte, Eugene Field, Will Carleton, and Joaquin Miller.
The remaining nine parts of the book treat in similar manner about seventy-five additional authors, embracing noted novelists, representative women poets of America; essayists, critics and sketch writers; great American historians and biographers; our national humorists; popular writers for young people; noted journalists and magazine contributors; great orators and popular lecturers. Thus, it will be seen that in this volume the whole field of American letters has been gleaned to make the work the best and most representative of our literature possible within the scope of a single volume.
In making a list of authors in whom the public were sufficiently interested to entitle them to a place in a work like this, naturally they were found to be entirely too numerous to be all included in one book. The absence of many good names from the volume is, therefore, explained by the fact that the editor has been driven to the necessity of selecting, first, those whom he deemed pre-eminently prominent, and, after that, making room for those who best represent a certain class or particular phase of our literature.
To those authors who have so kindly responded to our requests for courtesies, and whose names do not appear, the above explanation is offered. The omission was imperative in order that those treated might be allowed sufficient space to make the work as complete and representative as might be reasonably expected.
Special attention has been given to illustrations. We have inserted portraits of all the authors whose photographs we could obtain, and have, also, given views of the homes and studies of many. A large number of special drawings have also been made to illustrate the text of selections. The whole number of portraits and other illustrations amount to nearly one hundred and fifty, all of which are strictly illustrative of the authors or their writings. None are put in as mere ornaments. We have, furthermore, taken particular care to arrange a number of special groups, placing those authors which belong in one class or division of a class together on a page. One group on a page represents our greatest poets; another, well-known western poets; another, famous historians; another, writers for young people; another, American humorists, etc. These groups are all arranged by artists in various designs of ornamental setting. In many cases we have also had special designs made by artists for commemorative and historic pictures of famous authors. These drawings set forth in a pictorial form leading scenes in the life and labors of the author represented.