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FIRST PAGE THE CULPRIT FAY, AND OTHER POEMS by Joseph Rodman Drake ALNWICK CASTLE, AND OTHER POEMS by Fitz-Greene Halleck BRYANT'S POEMS THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP by Charles Dickens MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK by Charles Dickens THE QUACKS OF HELICON by L. A. Wilmer EXORDIUM [Graham's Magazine, January, 1842] BALLADS AND OTHER POEMS by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow HAWTHORNE'S TWICE-TOLD TALES by Nathaniel Hawthorne THE AMERICAN DRAMA
TORTESA, THE USURER SPANISH STUDENT THE PHILOSOPHY OF COMPOSITION THE RATIONALE OF VERSE THE POETIC PRINCIPLE PREFACE TO THE RAVEN AND OTHER POEMS
THESE TRIFLES are collected and republished chiefly with a view to their redemption from the many improvements to which they have been subjected while "going the rounds of the press." I am naturally anxious that if what I have written is to circulate at all, it should circulate as I wrote it. In defence of my own taste, nevertheless, it is incumbent on me to say that I think nothing in this volume of much value to the public, or very creditable to myself. Events not to be controlled have prevented me from making, at any time, any serious effort in what, under happier circumstances would have been the field of my choice. With me poetry has not been a purpose, but a passion; and the passions should be held in reverence; they must not- they cannot at will be excited, with an eye to the paltry compensations, or the more paltry commendations, of mankind
E. A. P.