Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882). Complete Poetical Works. 1893.

Publishers’ Note

THE RIVERSIDE EDITION of the writings of Mr. Longfellow was published in 1886. It contained a complete collection of the prose and verse, including translations; several hitherto uncollected pieces were brought into the various groups, and the aim was to make it definitive. The editor, H. E. Scudder, relying largely upon the biography by the poet’s brother, the Reverend Samuel Longfellow, provided a considerable apparatus of introductions and notes, bibliographical and illustrative. Reference was had also to the original issue of the several poems, and variations from the text were indicated in footnotes. No subsequent publication has added materially to the history of the writings, and no works unknown at that time have been discovered since. The Riverside Edition, therefore, will doubtless remain as authoritative and complete. It is published in eleven volumes, two being given to prose, six to verse, and three to the translation of Dante.

The present edition of Mr. Longfellow’s poetical writings is based upon the Riverside. It contains the entire text as published in the six volumes of verse, and such condensed bibliographical and other notes as seem desirable for the general reader and compatible with the limitations of a one-volume edition. A biographical sketch introduces the volume. The poems are given as nearly as may be in their chronological order, but a table at the end of the volume indicates this order more precisely.

BOSTON, 4 PARK STREET, October 1, 1893.