PREFACE.
An American reprint of “The Reader’s Handbook of allusions, references, plots and stories, by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D., of Trinity Hall, Cambridge,” has been for several years in the hands of cis-Atlantic students.
Too much praise cannot be awarded to the erudition and patient diligence displayed in the compilation of this volume of nearly twelve hundred pages. The breadth of range contemplated by the learned editor is best indicated in his own words:
“The object of this Handbook is to supply readers and speakers with a lucid, but very brief account of such names as are used in allusions and references, whether by poets or prose writers;—to furnish those who consult it with the plot of popular dramas, the story of epic poems, and the outline of well-known tales. The number of dramatic plots sketched out is many hundreds. Another striking and interesting feature of the book is the revelation of the source from which dramatists and romancers have derived their stories, and the strange repetitions of historic incidents. It has been borne in mind throughout that it is not enough to state a fact. It must be stated attractively, and the character described must be drawn characteristically if the reader is to appreciate it, and feel an interest in what he reads.”
All that Dr. Brewer claims for his book is sustained by examination of it. It is nevertheless true that there is in it a mass of matter comparatively unattractive to the American student and to the general reader. Many of his “allusions” are to localities and neighborhood traditions that, however interesting to English people, seem to us trivial, verbose and inopportune, while he, whose chief object in the purchase of the work is to possess a popular encyclopædia of literature, is rather annoyed than edified by even an erudite author when his “talk is of oxen,” fish, flesh and fowl.
Furthermore, the Handbook was prepared so long ago that the popular literature of the last dozen years is unrecorded; writers who now occupy the foremost places in the public eye not being so much as named.
In view of these and other drawbacks to the extended usefulness of the manual, the publishing-house whose imprint is upon the title-page of the present work, taking the stanch foundation laid by Dr. Brewer, have caused to be constructed upon it a work that, while retaining all of the original material that can interest and aid the English-speaking student, gives also “characters and sketches found in American novels, poetry and drama.”
It goes without saying that in the attempt to do this, it was necessary to leave out a greater bulk of entertaining matter than could be wrought in upon the original design. The imagination of the compiler, to whose reverent hands the task was entrusted, recurred continually, while it was in progress, to the magnificent hyperbole of the sacred narrator—“The which, if they should be written, every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written.” Appreciation of the honor put upon her by the commission deepened into delight as the work went on—prideful delight in the richness and variety of our national literature. To do ample justice to every writer and book would have been impossible, but the leading works of every author of note have the honorable place. It is hoped that the company of “characters” introduced among dramatis personæ of English and foreign classics, ancient and modern, will enliven pages that are already fascinating. Many names of English authors omitted from the Handbook for the reason stated awhile ago, will also be found in their proper positions.
The compiler and editor of this volume would be ungrateful did she not express her sense of obligation for assistance received in the work of collecting lists of writers and books from “The Library of American Literature,” prepared by Mr. Edmund Clarence Stedman and Miss Ellen Hutchinson.
Besides this, and a tolerable degree of personal familiarity with the leading literature of her own land, her resort has been to the public libraries in New York City—notably, to The Astor and The Mercantile. For the uniform courtesy she has received from those in charge of these institutions she herewith makes acknowledgement in the publisher’s name and in her own.