E-text prepared by Al Haines
by
New York
Chautauqua Press
C. L. S. C. Department, 150 Fifth Avenue
1891
The required books of the C. L. S. C. are recommended by a Council ofSix. It must, however, be understood that recommendation does notinvolve an approval by the Council, or by any member of it, of everyprinciple or doctrine contained in the book recommended.
This volume is intended as a companion to the historical sketch ofEnglish literature, entitled From Chaucer to Tennyson, published lastyear for the Chautauqua Circle. In writing it I have followed the sameplan, aiming to present the subject in a sort of continuous essayrather than in the form of a "primer" or elementary manual. I have notundertaken to describe, or even to mention, every American author orbook of importance, but only those which seemed to me of mostsignificance. Nevertheless I believe that the sketch contains enoughdetail to make it of some use as a guide-book to our literature.Though meant to be mainly a history of American belles-lettres, itmakes some mention of historical and political writings, but hardly anyof philosophical, scientific, and technical works.
A chronological rather than a topical order has been followed, althoughthe fact that our best literature is of recent growth has made itimpossible to adhere as closely to a chronological plan as in theEnglish sketch. In the reading courses appended to the differentchapters I have named a few of the most important authorities inAmerican literary history, such as Duyckinck, Tyler, Stedman, andRichardson. My thanks are due to the authors and publishers who havekindly allowed me the use of copyrighted matter for the appendix,especially to Mr. Park Godwin and Messrs. D. Appleton & Co. for thepassages from Bryant; to Messrs. A. O. Armstrong & Son for theselections from Poe; to the Rev. E. E. Hale and Messrs. RobertsBrothers for the extract from The Man Without a Country; to WaltWhitman for his two poems; and to Mr. Clemens and the AmericanPublishing Co. for the passage from The Jumping Frog.
1607-1765.
The writings of our colonial era have a much greater importance ashistory than as literature. It would be unfair to judge of theintellectual vigor of the English colonists in America by the booksthat they wrote; those "stern men with empires in their brains" hadmore pressing work to do than the making of books. The first settlers,indeed, were brought face to face with strange and excitingconditions—the sea, the wilderness, the Indians, the flora and faunaof a new world—things which seem stimulating to the imagination, andincidents and e