Chapter II: Part 1: Great Poets of America

2. OUR MOST NOTED NOVELISTS

3. FAMOUS WOMEN NOVELISTS

4. REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN POETS OF AMERICA

5. WELL-KNOWN ESSAYISTS, CRITICS AND SKETCH WRITERS

6. GREAT AMERICAN HISTORIANS AND BIOGRAPHERS

7. OUR NATIONAL HUMORISTS

8. POPULAR WRITERS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE

9. NOTED JOURNALISTS AND MAGAZINE CONTRIBUTORS

10. GREAT ORATORS AND POPULAR LECTURERS

11. FAMOUS WOMEN ORATORS AND REFORMERS

12. MISCELLANEOUS MASTERPIECES AND CHOICE GEMS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

_Our obligation_ to the following publishers is respectfully and gratefully acknowledged, since, without the courtesies and assistance of these publishers and a number of the living authors, it would have been impossible to issue this volume.

Copyright selections from the following authors are used by the permission of and special arrangement with _MESSRS. HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO._, their authorized publishers:――Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry W. Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell, Bayard Taylor, Maurice Thompson, Colonel John Hay, Bret Harte, William Dean Howells, Edward Bellamy, Charles Egbert Craddock (Miss Murfree), Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (Ward), Octave Thanet (Miss French), Alice Cary, Phœbe Cary, Charles Dudley Warner, E. C. Stedman, James Parton, John Fiske and Sarah Jane Lippincott.

_TO THE CENTURY CO._, we are indebted for selections from Richard Watson Gilder, James Whitcomb Riley and Francis Richard Stockton.

_TO CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS_, for extracts from Eugene Field.

_TO HARPER & BROTHERS_, for selections from Will Carleton, General Lew Wallace, W. D. Howells, Thomas Nelson Page, John L. Motley, Charles Follen Adams and Lyman Abbott.

_TO ROBERTS BROTHERS_, for selections from Edward Everett Hale, Helen Hunt Jackson, Louise Chandler Moulton and Louisa M. Alcott.

_TO ORANGE, JUDD & CO._, for extracts from Edward Eggleston.

_TO DODD, MEAD & CO._, for selections from E. P. Roe, Marion Harland (Mrs. Terhune), Amelia E. Barr and Martha Finley.

_TO D. APPLETON & CO._, for Wm. Cullen Bryant and John Bach McMaster.

_TO MACMILLAN & CO._, for F. Marion Crawford.

_TO HORACE L. TRAUBEL_, Executor, for Walt Whitman.

_TO ESTES & LAURIAT_, for Gail Hamilton (Mary Abigail Dodge).

_TO LITTLE, BROWN & CO._, for Francis Parkman.

_TO FUNK & WAGNALLS_, for Josiah Allen’s Wife (Miss Holley).

_TO LEE & SHEPARD_, for Yawcob Strauss (Charles Follen Adams), Oliver Optic (William T. Adams) and Mary A. Livermore.

_TO J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO._, for Bill Nye (Edgar Wilson Nye).

_TO GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS_, for Uncle Remus (Joel C. Harris).

_TO TICKNOR & CO._, for Julian Hawthorne.

_TO PORTER & COATES_, for Edward Ellis and Horatio Alger.

_TO WILLIAM F. GILL & CO._, for Whitelaw Reid.

_TO C. H. HUDGINS & CO._, for Henry W. Grady.

_TO THE “COSMOPOLITAN MAGAZINE,”_ for Julian Hawthorne.

_TO T. B. PETERSON & BROS._, for Frances Hodgson Burnett.

_TO JAS. R. OSGOOD & CO._, for Jane Goodwin Austin.

_TO GEO. R. SHEPARD_, for Thomas Wentworth Higginson.

_TO J. LEWIS STACKPOLE_, for John L. Motley.

Besides the above, we are under special obligation to a number of authors who kindly furnished, in answer to our request, selections which they considered representative of their writings.

Illustration: American Authors
Hawthorne • Cooper • H. B. Stowe • Prescott • Irving