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DICTIONARY

OSCAR FAY ADAMS

FIFTH EDITION REVISED AND ENLARGED

BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 1904

REPUBLISHED BY GALE RESEARCH COMPANY, BOOK TOWER, DETROIT, 1969

COPYRIGHT 1884, 1897, 1904 BY OSCAR FAY ADAMS

To My Mother

PREFACE TO THE FIFTH EDITION

BOSTON, DECEMBER 1, 1904.

PREFACE

The present volume is an outgrowth of the writer's "Handbook of American Authors," first published in 1884, several features which the judgment of the public approved in the earlier work having been retained in this. Without pretending to contain an exhaustive list of American writers, it may nevertheless lay claim to be fairly inclusive, as the more than six thousand names herein mentioned will serve to show. A few names that might naturally be looked for here have been omitted at the request of their owners; while some others have not been included, for the reason that diligent search failed to discover any trustworthy data concerning them. Here and there, too, the reader may chance upon unfilled dates of birth, or initials unexpanded. Yet in the majority of such cases application by letter made directly to the owners of the names aforesaid, or to relatives and immediate friends of such persons, has failed to elicit any response. All reasonable effort has been made to obtain trustworthy information upon such points, but failure to obtain replies to letters of inquiry must account for the greater number of such omissions; and here it may not be out of place to mention that information of more general character obtained from private sources has now and then been received too late to be of service, owing to the fact that the work was already electrotyped before it came to hand.

In a comprehensive work like this, including so large a number of names and so many thousand dates, errors must of necessity occur, and the author cannot hope to escape adverse criticism in this respect. While absolute accuracy would have been impossible to attain, he has nevertheless taken no little pains to approach this ideal; and to this end, besides resorting to the ordinary means of information, he has consulted hundreds of catalogues of libraries, colleges, and publishers, as well as denominational year-books, and in numberless instances has availed himself of trustworthy information received directly from private sources. It thus happens that in certain cases dates given in this volume differ from those in other works of reference, and where this occurs the reason for the adoption of a different date herein is supported by excellent authority.

It has been thought advisable to retain the "u" in the spelling of such words as "colour," "favour," and the like, the exceptions to this occurring in titles where the spelling of the original has been followed. In connection with this it may not be amiss to note that the original spelling of titles has been very commonly though not invariably retained. To have done this in every instance, however, would have entailed more labour than it was desirable to incur.

For several reasons the author has thought best in his classification of certain authors to discriminate between poets and verse-writers. To apply the name of poet to each and every writer of verse would have been manifestly unjust. The poets of a generation are not numerous, but the verse-writers are very many. If the term "poet" be loosely applied it loses its signification, while to deny that name to many a writer of excellent verse is to do him no injustice, but rather a service, as it is no disparagement to a private soldier not to be addressed as colonel.

To the many persons who have so cordially responded to his letters of inquiry, and whom he may not thank by name, the writer desires in this place to express his acknowledgments. To Mr. Arthur Mason Knapp, the superintendent of the Bates Hall department of the Boston Public Library, he has been indebted for very much in the way of help and suggestion from the time the work was begun, and to other officials of that department he is under obligations likewise. He also gratefully acknowledges much timely assistance received from the publishing firms of Lee & Shepard, T. Y. Crowell & Co., and Lamson, Wolffe & Co. In the reading of the proofs many valuable suggestions have been received from the proof-readers at the Riverside Press; but his especial thanks are due his friend, Mr. Francis H. Allen, of Boston, whose watchful, critical supervision has been exercised upon every page of proof from first to last. The debt of gratitude which the writer owes him for this service may not be lightly estimated. Without his help, the book would have fallen far short of whatever measure of excellence it may now be judged to attain.

THE HERMITAGE, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, JUNE 17, 1897.

PUBLISHERS NAMED IN THIS VOLUME.

The place of birth of the larger number of the authors mentioned in this volume is indicated by an abbreviation placed before the date of birth, which the following list will serve to explain:--

EXPLANATORY NOTE.

Brackets occurring in the names of men indicate that the portion they inclose has been dropped from the owner's signature. In the names of women the bracketed portion is the maiden name and, in the case of a second marriage, the first married name also.

"You'd scarce expect one of my age To speak in public on the stage."

Common Sense in D?shabill?, or the Farmer's Monitor; Daranzel, or the Persian Poet, a tragedy.

"No pent-up Utica contracts your powers, But the whole boundless continent is yours."

Miscellaneous Poems .

SUPPLEMENT

FOOTNOTES:

Since the above was in type the firm name has become L. C. Page & Co.

See Addenda, p. 441.

A distinguishing initial only.

A distinguishing initial only.

A distinguishing initial only.

A distinguishing initial only.

A distinguishing initial only.

A distinguishing initial only.

Transcriber's Notes

Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations in hyphenation have been standardised, except where those variations exist in book titles. All other spelling and punctuation remains unchanged.

The following corrections were made to the text:

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