THE LITERARY NEWS An Eclectic Review of Current Literature Published monthly, and containing the freshest news concerning books and authors; lists of new publications; reviews and critical comments; characteristic extracts; sketches and anecdotes of authors; courses of reading; bibliographical references; literary topics of the PUBLICATION OFFICE, 31 AND 32 PARK Row, NEW YORK. $1.00 a Year. JANUARY, 1887. VOL. VIII., No. 1. LONGFELLOW: THE FINAL EDITION AND THE LIFE. Of the lives of men of letters, few have been more perfect, more rounded, than that of Longfellow. Even the sorrows that clouded his life had their silver lining, in the exquisite poems of the minor chord that consoled him and touched the world. And now his good lives after him in perhaps HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. the most perfect "final edition" that has been vouchsafed, as his immediate memorial, to any author, and in a biography written by a brother not only in literature but by blood. No man could ask more of the fates. ** The tiny blue and gold editions with which Longfellow's name was for so long associated, and the modest volumes which followed now and then, cause one to forget how prolific was his muse. It is almost forgotten that he wrote prose. That he was as a reviewer one of the mainstays of the North American Review in its early days, few recall. This fitting Riverside edition will occupy, nevertheless, eleven goodly volumes, when it is completed by the three of his superb translation of Dante's Divine Comedy. There are already two of prose, "Outremer," that post-Irving Sketch-book, and the "Driftwood" of his review essays, in one, 'Hyperion," a romance, "the life of one who in his feelings and purposes," wrote Longfellow to his friend Greene, "is 'a son of Heaven and Earth,' and who, though obscured by clouds, yet moves on high," and the tale of "Kavanagh," in the other; and six (Wood-engraving from the portrait on steel in Riverside Edition, from photo. by G. R. Warren, Cambridgeport, about 1877.) of poetry I., "Voices of the Night," and other shorter poems from 1837 to 1850; II., " Evangeline," "Hiawatha," and "Miles Standish;" III., " Birds of Passage" and other shorter poems from 1851 to 1882; IV., "Tales of a Wayside Inn;" V., "Christus;" VI., "Maccabeus," "Michael Angelo" and Translations. The simple yet elegant form of these volumes, with their binding of smooth olive cloth and their square backs, is absolutely fitting for its purpose and a credit to Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., their publishers. Happily the "Life," in two octavo volumes, written by Rev. Samuel Longfellow, the younger brother of the poet, though issued by other pub manners and bearing," "uniformly cheerful," "his figure slight and erect, his complexion light and delicate as a maiden's, with a slight bloom upon the cheek; his nose rather prominent, his eyes clear and blue, and his well-formed head covered with a profusion of brown hair waving loosely." The first portrait is of the young Bowdoin professor, not yet thirty, by a wandering artist, one Badger, who saw him still a slender youth, of dignified bearing, with flashing eye and sympathetic mouth, the author of “ Outre-mer." In 1840, through the eyes of C. G. Thompson, one shordes of might brave. with the strange dovica From the first draft, written on the back of a note from Mr. Sumner: now in Harvard College Library. (From the " Life.") active rogue," wrote his mother of her baby," and wishes for nothing so much as singing or dancing;" "a lively boy," so later friends recall "with brown or chestnut hair, blue eyes, a delicate complexion, and rosy cheeks; sensitive, impressionable; active, eager, impetuous, often impatient; quick-tempered, but as quickly appeased; kind-hearted and affectionate--the sunlight of the house;" in college, as his professors and classmates witness, "an attractive youth, of well-bred * LONGFELLOW, H: W. The complete poetical and prose works. In 1 v.: Prose Works, 2 v.; Poetical Works, 6 v.; Divina Commedia of Dante (nearly ready), 3 v. Riverside ed. 5 portraits. Bost., Houghton, Mifflin & Co. D. cl., ea. $1.50. LONGFELLOW, S:, ed. Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, with extracts from his journals and correspondence. Bost., Ticknor & Co., 1886. 2 V., por. and il. O. cl., $6; hf. cf., or hf. mor,, $11; édition de luxe, $12. sees the Harvard professor, a grave face, but with Hyperion curling locks. The pastel of Francis Alexander, 1852, foreshadows the older face, but the charming familiar portrait by Samuel Lawrence, two years later, gives us back the younger, tender, exquisitely poetic face by which Longfellow's youthful middle-age will always be recalled by those to whom his memory is dear. Healy painted him, in his mellow autumn, in 1862; the later portraits are those of his son, Ernest, in 1876, and photographs taken in 1877 and 1878, which bring back to any one who knew him in the old house at Cambridge, the white-haired gentle sage of his stormless winter. ** * It should be an encouragement to young, even |