Excerpt from American Lands and Letters: The Mayflower to Rip Van Winkle As I became interested in the subject-matter of this volume, there grew upon me a fear that it would run to inordinate length - except some bounds were fixed; hence, no writer is dwelt upon whose birth-date belongs in the present century. This limit shuts off a distinguished group of authors - born in the first decade of this century - whose names come to the thought of all intent upon American literary work. The critics will say, with the justice always distin guishing them - the book should have been longer and covered more names; or, shorter and dealt with fewer writers, or - in some way, should have been - quite other than it is. In deed, upon a reading of the proofs I have unwittingly drifted into agreement with such possible damnatory phrases, and have, again and again, under the imagined critical guid ance, inclined to the confession that I have left undone those things which I ought to have done, and have done those things which I ought not to have done. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.