LITERATURE FRANKLIN: IRVING: BRYANT: WEBSTER: EVERETT EMERSON: HOLMES: LOWELL HARVARD Copyright, 1891, BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. All rights reserved. The Riverside Press CAMBRIDGE. MASSACHUSETTS PRINTED IN THE U.S.A PREFACE. THIS volume owes its existence to the desire of the Boston school authorities for a collection of productions from American authors of distinction, especially suitable for use in the most advanced class of the grammar schools. Its contents are taken mostly from the Riverside Literature Series. At the request of the committee on text-books, the board of supervisors, after conferring with the publishers, planned the book and approved every selection. Their action was reported to the committee on text-books, and upon the recommendation of this committee the school board, by a unanimous vote, adopted the proposed book, Masterpieces of American Literature, as a text-book for reading in the first class of the grammar schools. The considerations that guided in the make-up of the book were that the various authors should be represented by characteristic and noted productions; that these productions, though generally above the present range of the thought and experience of the students, should yet be within their reach; that they should be inspiring and uplifting in their influence upon life and character, and fitted to serve the great purpose of developing a sense of what real literature is, both in form and in spirit. While holding to these considerations, it was also kept in mind that the book must be a reading-book, in the school sense. It is to be used for improvement in the art of oral reading as well as for studies in literature. Therefore, a variety of styles in both prose and poetry is needed. This will explain why, in some instances, a particular selection is made from an author rather than some other selection. The more mechanical part of oral reading the development and management of the voice, the rendering flexible the organs of speech and securing precision in their action-may receive due attention without much regard to the meaning of the exercises used in practice. But to gain the ability to read well orally to convey exact thought and quicken feeling by the utterance, in appropriate tones, of what another has written requires extended practice upon pieces rich in thought and various in style and sentiment. The brief biographical sketches of the thirteen authors represented here, while helpful for the information which they contain, will, it is hoped, inspire the reader to a further study of the authors and their works. As this book has been especially prepared for the advanced class in the grammar schools of Boston to meet an acknowledged want, there can be no doubt that it will render the same good service in classes of similar grade elsewhere. The selections from the following named authors are used by permission of, and by arrangement with, the authorized publishers of their works: NOTE.- In response to repeated requests the publishers have added to this book two selections from the writings of Edgar Allan Poe, with a biographical sketch. The text followed in the selections is that of the ten volume edition of Poe's complete Works, issued by Messrs. Herbert S. Stone & Co., and is used through the courtesy of the publishers. August, 1902. |