SELECTIONS WITH CRITICAL INTRODUCTIONS BY VARIOUS INTRODUCTION EDITED BY GEORGE RICE CARPENTER PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC AND ENGLISH COMPOSITION New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD. 1916 All rights reserved Set up and electrotyped September, 1898. Reprinted August, 1899; July, 1903; February, 1907; July, 1911; July, 1913; July, 1914: April, 1916. Norwood Press J. S. Cushing & Co. - Berwick & Smith PREFACE THIS Volume follows in general the plan adopted in Mr. Craik's English Prose and in Mr. Ward's English Poets. Its object is to present extracts of considerable length from the works of each of the chief American prose-writers, preceded by a critical essay and a brief biographical sketch. Authors now living-great as has been the temptation are not included. The text of the extracts has been carefully reprinted from the best editions, without any attempt at producing uniformity in spelling or punctuation. The source of each extract is explicitly stated. The editor is responsible for the selection of the authors, the choice of the extracts, and for the biographical sketches of Brown, Irving, Cooper, Hawthorne, Longfellow, Poe, Thoreau, Whitman, and Lowell. Thanks are due to many publishers, whose names are mentioned in the appropriate places, for their kindness in allowing the use of extracts from works still in copyright, or revised texts, still in copyright, of works that themselves have already passed out of copyright. On the other hand, it must be stated that to the singular unwillingness of the publishers of Holmes's writings to allow the use of a few thousand words from his principal works is due the absence of extracts from Holmes in this volume. Indifference to American literature, as well as ignorance of its history, its development, and its value, is so common among us, even with those whose passion is the study of the literatures of other lands, that it is hoped that this volume may open the eyes |