OF

AMERICAN LITERATURE:

EMBRACING

PERSONAL AND CRITICAL NOTICES OF AUTHORS,

AND SELECTIONS FROM THEIR WRITINGS,

FROM THE EARLIEST PERIOD TO THE PRESENT DAY;

WITH

Portraits, Autographs, and other Allustrations,

BY

EVERT A. DUYCKINCK AND GEORGE L. DUYCKINCK.

EDITED TO DATE BY M. LAIRD SIMONS.

IN TWO VOLUMES

VOL. I.

PHILADELPHIA:

WM. RUTTER & CO.,

SEVENTH & CHERRY STREETS.

INTRODUCTORY NOTE.

MR.

R. DUYCKINCK'S CYCLOPÆDIA OF AMERICAN LITERATURE is a work monumental in character and in execution. Within its two thousand pages are traced the lives and literary labors of the Authors whom all are proud to name as foremost among the representative men of America. Scholars, divines, philosophers, poets, litterateurs, and reformers — these volumes illustrate the fruit of their culture and persistent toil of brain and heart. The men and women who use the pen, and who in the main use it royally, are not drudges of the pen, but are clansmen fighting loyally in their generation for refinement, truth, honor, humanity, purity of life, and conscience. They are apostles preaching a gospel of real manhood and womanhood, whether they appeal to the fancy, the imagination, the heart, the intellect, the wavering soul, or the immortal spirit that claims kinship to the Divine Father. Such workers as these are profound teachers and moulders of their age, whose labors demand to be outlined in a commemorative book like the present a book that glories in, and is glorified by, the galaxy of American writers. And it is a matter for congratulation that the task of such an editorship fell so fittingly, twenty years since, into the hands of the brothers DUYCKINCK. In that employment they spent several years of their lives, though aided in part by the favors of many scholars. The first edition of the CYCLOPÆDIA was printed in 1856, forming two royal octavo volumes of above fourteen hundred and seventy pages. The aims of its editors were so exactly defined in their Preface, that the attention of our readers is invited thereto, in preference to a re-survey of its fascinating subject. At once the book took rank as the standard authority on American Literature in its biographic and historic development, while its catholicity, accuracy, and scholarly tone have been repeatedly acknowledged by those competent to judge. After an interval of ten years, wherein GEORGE LONG DUYCKINCK was called away from his earthly labors, the elder editor, EVERT A. DUYCKINCK, prepared a Supplement of one hundred and sixty pages, which was published in 1866. It included, to quote its title, "Obituaries of authors, continuations of former articles, with notices of earlier and later writers omitted in previous editions.”

The entire electrotype plates of this work came into the possession of the present proprietors by purchase in 1872, whereupon measures were at once taken for the issue of a new edition. It was purposed to transfer the matter of the Supplement into the original pages, and to continue each article to date, so that all relating to an author should be grouped chronologically under a single heading, while a proper record should also be made of the writers of the last decade. It was hoped that Mr. Duyckinck could still retain his oversight and editorship; but his prior literary engagements defeated that expectation. Thus this attractive but responsible duty devolved on a younger and less experienced editor.

As completed on the plan outlined, the present edition of the CYCLOPÆDIA extends to two thousand and eighty pages, being an addition of four hundred and fifty. It contains biographic sketches of above nine hundred authors,—a full ninth of whom now appear for the first time,- besides many articles on collegiate and literary institutions. The

manifold data was collected by a widely-extended correspondence with those most competent to speak on each point, and by an examination of the proper bibliography and literature. The few omissions to continue old articles to date were wholly involuntary, and because letters of inquiry failed to reach the parties sought after, or else were left unanswered. ** Wherever practicable, these additions, as well as the new sketches and literary extracts, were indicated by the prefix of two asterisks to the opening paragraph. This discrimination was thought to be due in justice to the original Editor. Those minor changes which could not be typographically indicated have all met his approval. As the original work was found to be strikingly accurate in its facts, such emendations were chiefly owing to the lapse of years, and in no case embraced any liberty with the critical opinions on record. The sole endeavor has been to make each article as amended at unity with itself and exhaustive, as far as the inexorable limits of the electrotype plates would allow. The hundred original articles are mostly of those authors who have won the right to admission in recent years; and yet it has not been possible to include all the worthies our lists contained. These biographies, which are well illustrated from photographs, are as full in detail as the accessible material permitted; and recourse has always been had to the primal sources of information. The literature of the past twenty years has been winnowed, and many selections taken therefrom. It is believed the revised edition may be relied on for its accuracy, thanks to the kindness of several hundred of our literary friends in furnishing facts and revising proofs. We trust it will be found as complete a record as the inherent difficulties of the subject have permitted. It is important to note that almost every page was electrotyped by the close of the year 1873, and that, with only an occasional exception, it was impossible to continue its annals later than that year.

Mr. Evert A. Duyckinck gave kindly advice in the preparation of this edition, approved the list of new authors introduced, and generously looked over the plate-proofs. He cordially endorsed the method of its execution, which sought to give a clear narrative of what American authors did to the year 1873, without censorious or laudatory criticism, so that each notable volume should rest on a statement of its nature and aims. Yet he is in nowise responsible for the changes and additions in the present CYCLOPÆDIA, the burden of which is to be borne by his successor. Our thanks are due to him, for his sympathy and friendship throughout this delicate and arduous task.

To Mr. John Ward Dean, of Boston, and Mr. Charles Henry Hart, of Philadelphia, we are under obligations for memoranda concerning the prominent writers on antiquarian and genealogical topics. Mr. Dean's fund of literary information was only equalled by the kindness with which he hastened to put it at the service of our readers; and his disinterestedness was displayed in clearing up various perplexities. Courteous favors were also rendered by Mr. Thomas Wentworth Higginson, of Newport; Mr. Charles Dudley Warner, of Hartford; Professor Willard Fiske, of Cornell University; General James Grant Wilson, of New York city, who revised the articles on the brother poets, Drake and Halleck; and Mr. Lloyd Pearsall Smith, the helpful librarian of the Library Company of Philadelphia. To these gentlemen, as well as to the Mercantile Library Company and the American Philosophical Society, we tender our hearty thanks.

PHILADELPHIA, February, 1875.

M. L. S.