Transcriber’s Note:
Cover created by Transcriber and placed in the Public Domain.
Edited by
Theodore Stanton, M.A. (Cornell)
In Collaboration with
Members of the Faculty of
Cornell University
G. P. Putnam’s Sons
New York and London
The Knickerbocker Press
1909
Copyright, 1909
BY
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
The Knickerbocker Press, New York
TO
PRESIDENT THEODORE ROOSEVELT
THIS
MEMORIAL VOLUME
IS DEDICATED
IN TOKEN OF HIGH REGARD AND ADMIRATION.
TAUCHNITZ.
This book has been prepared for publication as No.4000, a “Memorial Volume,” of the “Tauchnitz Edition.”Perhaps it may be well to explain to American readerswhat the “Tauchnitz Edition” is and what a “MemorialVolume” is in this collection.
The “Collection of British Authors,” or, as it is morepopularly known on the European Continent, the “TauchnitzEdition,” was instituted in 1841, at Leipsic, by oneof the most distinguished of German publishers, the lateBaron Bernhard Tauchnitz, whose son is now at the headof the house. The father records that he was “incited tothe undertaking by the high opinion and enthusiasticfondness which I have ever entertained for English literature:a literature springing from the selfsame root as theliterature of Germany, and cultivated in the beginning bythe same Saxon race.... As a German-Saxon it gave meparticular pleasure to promote the literary interest of myAnglo-Saxon cousins, by rendering English literature asuniversally known as possible beyond the limits of theBritish Empire.” In another place, Baron Tauchnitzdescribes “the mission” of his Collection to be the “spreadingand strengthening the love for English literature outsideof England and her Colonies.”
Baron Tauchnitz early felt that the general title of theseries, “Collection of British Authors,” was a misnomer,viwhich might even give offence to an important branchof the English-speaking race; for, though Bulwer andDickens led off in the Collection, “Pelham” being the firstvolume issued and “The Pickwick Papers” the second, thefourth volume, added at the beginning of the second yearof publication, in 1842, was Fenimore Cooper’s “The Spy,”followed in the same year by a second volume of the sameauthor. Furthermore, the year 1843 opened with WashingtonIrving’s “Sketch Book,” immediately followed by athird novel by Cooper; and, though it was not till 1850that another American work gained admittance into thischarmed circle, not fewer than three of Irving’s bookssucceeded one another in the single twelvemonth. In 1852,Hawthorne was welcomed with “The Scarlet Letter” andMrs. Stowe with “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”; from that time on,scarcely a year has passed without some new Americanbook being included in the Collection, and under the presentroutine each year’s issue, comprising some seventy-fivevolumes, includes several American works.
In fact, the representation of American authors in the“Tauchnitz Edition” is now so considerable tha