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Contents

PREFACE TO THE SEVENTH EDITION xvii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xxv

American Literature 1820–1865

Introduction 929
Timeline 948

WASHINGTON IRVING (1783–1859) 951

Rip Van Winkle 953
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow 965

JAMES FENIMORE COOPER (1789–1851) 985

The Pioneers 987
Volume II 988
Chapter II [The Judge’s History of the Settlement;
A Sudden Storm] 988
Chapter III [The Slaughter of the Pigeons] 995
The Last of the Mohicans 1002
Volume I 1003
Chapter III [Natty Bumppo and Chingachgook;
Stories of the Fathers] 1003

CATHARINE MARIA SEDGWICK (1789–1867) 1009

Hope Leslie 1010
Volume I 1011
Chapter IV [Magawisca’s History of “The Pequod War”] 1011
Volume II 1023
Chapter XIV [Magawisca’s Farewell] 1023

LYDIA HOWARD HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY (1791–1865) 1028

Death of an Infant 1029
The Suttee 1030
To the First Slave Ship 1031
Columbus before the University of Salamanca 1032
Indian Names 1033
The Coral Insect 1035
To a Shred of Linen 1036

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Niagara 1038
Our Aborigines 1039
The Two Draughts 1040
Fallen Forests 1041
Erin’s Daughter 1042
Two Old Women 1043

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT (1794–1878) 1044

Thanatopsis 1045
To a Waterfowl 1047
Sonnet—To an American Painter Departing for Europe 1048
The Prairies 1048

WILLIAM APESS (1798–1839) 1051

An Indian’s Looking-Glass for the White Man 1051

JANE JOHNSTON SCHOOLCRAFT (1800–1842) 1058

Elegy: On the death of my son William Henry, at St. Mary’s 1059
Sweet Willy 1060
To the Pine Tree 1061
Lines Written at Castle Island, Lake Superior 1062
Two Songs 1063
[My lover is tall and handsome] 1064
Moowis, the Indian Coquette 1065
The Little Spirit, or Boy-Man 1066

CAROLINE STANSBURY KIRKLAND (1801–1864) 1068

A New Home—Who’ll Follow? or, Glimpses of Western Life 1069
Preface 1069
Chapter I 1070
Chapter XVI 1074

LYDIA MARIA CHILD (1802–1880) 1078

Letters from New-York 1081
Letter I [The Streets of a Modern Babylon] 1081
Letter XIV [Burying Ground of the Poor] 1083
Letter XX [Birds] 1087
Letter XXVIII [Anecdote of a Donkey; Universal Harmony] 1092
Letter XXXIV [Women’s Rights] 1096
Letter XXXVI [Barnum’s American Museum] 1100

RALPH WALDO EMERSON (1803–1882) 1106

Nature 1110
The American Scholar 1138
The Divinity School Address 1151
Self-Reliance 1163
The Poet 1180
Experience 1195
John Brown 1211
Fate 1213
Thoreau 1231
Each and All 1244
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The Snow-Storm 1245

Bacchus 1246
Merlin 1248
Brahma 1251
Letter to Walt Whitman (July 21, 1855) 1251

NATIVE AMERICANS: REMOVAL AND RESISTANCE 1252

BLACK HAWK: From Life of Black Hawk 1253

PETALESHARO: Speech of the Pawnee Chief 1257

Speech of the Pawnee Loup Chief 1259

ELIAS BOUDINOT: From the Cherokee Phoenix 1260

Memorial of the Cherokee Citizens, November 5, 1829 1263

RALPH WALDO EMERSON: Letter to President Martin Van Buren 1268

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE (1804–1864) 1272

My Kinsman, Major Molineux 1276
Young Goodman Brown 1289
Wakefield 1298
The May-Pole of Merry Mount 1304
The Minister’s Black Veil 1311
The Birth-Mark 1320
Rappaccini’s Daughter 1332
The Scarlet Letter 1352
The Custom-House 1352
The Scarlet Letter 1377
Preface to The House of the Seven Gables 1493

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW (1807–1882) 1495

A Psalm of Life 1497
The Slave Singing at Midnight 1498
The Day Is Done 1499
Evangeline, A Tale of Acadie 1500
[Prologue] 1500
The Fire of Drift-wood 1501
The Jewish Cemetery at Newport 1502
My Lost Youth 1504
The Cross of Snow 1506

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER (1807–1892) 1507

The Hunters of Men 1509
Ichabod! 1510
Snow-Bound: A Winter Idyl 1511
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EDGAR ALLAN POE (1809–1849) 1528

Sonnet—To Science 1532
To Helen 1532
Israfel 1533
The City in the Sea 1534
Alone 1536
The Raven 1536
To ———. Ulalume: A Ballad 1539
Annabel Lee 1542
Ligeia 1543
The Fall of the House of Usher 1553
William Wilson. A Tale 1566
The Man of the Crowd 1579
The Masque of the Red Death 1585
The Tell-Tale Heart 1589
The Black Cat 1593
The Purloined Letter 1599
The Cask of Amontillado 1612
The Philosophy of Composition 1617
From The Poetic Principle 1625

ABRAHAM LINCOLN (1809–1865) 1627

A House Divided: Speech Delivered at Springfield, Illinois, at the Close
of the Republican State Convention, June 16, 1858 1628
Address Delivered at the Dedication of the Cemetery at Gettysburg,
Nov. 19, 1863 1635
Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865 1635

MARGARET FULLER (1810–1850) 1637

From The Great Lawsuit: Man versus Men. Woman versus
Women 1640
Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 1659
Chapter I 1659
Chapter III 1664
Review of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass,
An American Slave 1673
Fourth of July 1675
Things and Thoughts in Europe 1677
Letter XVIII 1677

SLAVERY, RACE, AND THE MAKING OF

AMERICAN LITERATURE 1682

THOMAS JEFFERSON: From Notes on the State of Virginia 1683

DAVID WALKER: From David Walker’s Appeal in Four Articles 1686

WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON: To the Public 1690

ANGELINA E. GRIMKÉ: From Appeal to the Christian Women of

the South 1692
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SOJOURNER TRUTH: Speech to the Women’s Rights Convention in

Akron, Ohio, 1851 1695

MARTIN R. DELANY: From Political Destiny of the Colored Race on

the American Continent 1696

HARRIET BEECHER STOWE (1811–1896) 1698

Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life among the Lowly 1701
Volume I 1701
Chapter I. In Which the Reader Is Introduced to a Man of
Humanity 1701
Chapter III. The Husband and Father 1708
Chapter VII. The Mother’s Struggle 1711
Chapter IX. In Which It Appears That a Senator Is but a Man 1721
Chapter XII. Select Incident of Lawful Trade 1732
Chapter XIII. The Quaker Settlement 1744
Chapter XIV. Evangeline 1751
Volume II 1758
Chapter XX. Topsy 1758
Chapter XXX. The Slave Warehouse 1768
Chapter XXXI. The Middle Passage 1776
Chapter XXXIV. The Quadroon’s Story 1780
Chapter XL. The Martyr 1787

FANNY FERN (SARAH WILLIS PARTON) (1811–1872) 1792

Aunt Hetty on Matrimony 1794
Hungry Husbands 1795
Barnum’s Museum 1796
Tom Pax’s Conjugal Soliloquy 1798
Male Criticism on Ladies’ Books 1799
“Fresh Leaves, by Fanny Fern” 1800
A Law More Nice Than Just 1802
Ruth Hall 1803
Chapter LIV 1803
Chapter LVI 1806

HARRIET JACOBS (ca. 1813–1897) 1808

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl 1809
I. Childhood 1809
VII. The Lover 1812
X. A Perilous Passage in the Slave Girl’s Life 1816
XIV. Another Link to Life 1819
XXI. The Loophole of Retreat 1822
XLI. Free at Last 1824

WILLIAM WELLS BROWN 1829

Narrative of William W. Brown, A Fugitive Slave 1831
Chapter VI [Slavery’s Deceptions] 1831
The Narrative of the Life and Escape of William Wells Brown 1837
[Escape; Self-Education] 1837
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Clotel; or, The President’s Daughter 1841

Chapter I. The Negro Sale 1841
Chapter XXIV. The Arrest 1847
Chapter XXV. Death Is Freedom 1850

HENRY DAVID THOREAU (1817–1862) 1853

Resistance to Civil Government 1857
Walden, or Life in the Woods 1872
Slavery in Massachusetts 2046
From A Plea for Captain John Brown 2056

FREDERICK DOUGLASS (1818–1895) 2060

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave,
Written by Himself 2064
My Bondage and My Freedom 2129
Chapter I. The Author’s Childhood 2129
Chapter II. The Author Removed from His First Home 2133
Chapter III. The Author’s Parentage 2136
What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? 2140
The Heroic Slave 2143

SECTION, REGION, NATION 2171

DANIEL WEBSTER: From First Settlement of New England 2172

WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS: Written in Mississippi 2175

From Americanism in Literature 2177

RICHARD HENRY DANA JR.: From Two Years before the Mast 2179

JOHN LOUIS O’SULLIVAN: From Annexation 2182

FRANCIS PARKMAN JR.: From The California and Oregon Trail 2183

LOUISE AMELIA SMITH CLAPPE: From California, in 1851 and

1852. Residence in the Mines 2186

MARY BOYKIN MILLER CHESNUT: From Mary Chesnut’s

Civil War 2189

WALT WHITMAN (1819–1892) 2190

Preface to Leaves of Grass (1855) 2195
Inscriptions 2209
One’s-Self I Sing 2209
Shut Not Your Doors 2210
Song of Myself (1881) 2210
Children of Adam 2254
From Pent-up Aching Rivers 2254
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A Woman Waits for Me 2256

Spontaneous Me 2257
Once I Pass’d through a Populous City 2259
Facing West from California’s Shores 2259
Calamus 2260
Scented Herbage of My Breast 2260
Whoever You Are Holding Me Now in Hand 2261
Trickle Drops 2262
Here the Frailest Leaves of Me 2262
Crossing Brooklyn Ferry 2263
Sea-Drift 2267
Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking 2267
As I Ebb’d with the Ocean of Life 2272
By the Roadside 2274
When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer 2274
The Dalliance of the Eagles 2274
Drum-Taps 2275
Beat! Beat! Drums! 2275
Cavalry Crossing a Ford 2276
Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night 2276
A March in the Ranks Hard-Prest, and the Road Unknown 2277
A Sight in Camp in the Daybreak Gray and Dim 2278
As Toilsome I Wander’d Virginia’s Woods 2278
The Wound-Dresser 2279
Reconciliation 2281
As I Lay with My Head in Your Lap Camerado 2281
Spirit Whose Work Is Done 2282
Memories of President Lincoln 2282
When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d 2282
Whispers of Heavenly Death 2288
A Noiseless Patient Spider 2288
Letter to Ralph Waldo Emerson 2289
Live Oak, with Moss 2296
From Democratic Vistas 2300

HERMAN MELVILLE (1819–1891) 2304

Hawthorne and His Mosses 2308
Moby-Dick 2320
Chapter 1. Loomings 2321
Chapter 3. The Spouter-Inn 2325
Chapter 28. Ahab 2335
Chapter 36. The Quarter-Deck 2337
Chapter 41. Moby Dick 2342
Chapter 42. The Whiteness of the Whale 2349
Chapter 135. The Chase—Third Day 2355
Epilogue 2363
Bartleby, the Scrivener 2363
The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids 2389
Benito Cereno 2405
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Battle-Pieces 2461
The Portent 2461
Misgivings 2462
The March into Virginia 2462
A Utilitarian View of the Monitor’s Flight 2463
Shiloh 2464
The House-top 2465
John Marr and Other Sailors 2466
The Maldive Shark 2466
The Berg 2466
Timoleon, Etc. 2467
Monody 2467
Art 2468
Billy Budd, Sailor 2468

ELIZABETH DREW STODDARD (1823–1902) 2524

Lemorne versus Huell 2525

FRANCES ELLEN WATKINS HARPER (1825–1911) 2538

Eliza Harris 2539
The Slave Mother 2541
Ethiopia 2542
The Fugitive’s Wife 2543
The Tennessee Hero 2544
Bury Me in a Free Land 2545
The Colored People in America 2546
The Two Offers 2547

EMILY DICKINSON (1830–1886) 2554

39 [49] [I never lost as much but twice - ] 2558
112 [67] [Success is counted sweetest] 2558
122 [130] [These are the days when Birds come back - ] 2559
123 [131] [Besides the Autumn poets sing] 2560
124 [216] [Safe in their Alabaster Chambers - ] 2560
146 [148] [All overgrown by cunning moss] 2561
194 [1072] [Title divine, is mine!] 2561
202 [185] [“Faith” is a fine invention] 2561
207 [214] [I taste a liquor never brewed - ] 2562
225 [199] [I’m “wife” - I’ve finished that - ] 2562
236 [324] [Some keep the Sabbath going to Church - ] 2563
256 [285] [The Robin’s my Criterion for Tune - ] 2563
259 [287] [A Clock stopped - ] 2564
260 [288] [I’m Nobody! Who are you?] 2564
269 [249] [Wild Nights - Wild Nights!] 2565
279 [664] [Of all the Souls that stand create - ] 2565
320 [258] [There’s a certain Slant of light] 2567
339 [241] [I like a look of Agony] 2567
340 [280] [I felt a Funeral, in my Brain] 2568
347 [348] [I dreaded that first Robin, so] 2568
348 [505] [I would not paint - a picture - ] 2569
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355 [510] [It was not Death, for I stood up] 2570
359 [328] [A Bird came down the Walk - ] 2571
365 [338] [I know that He exists] 2571
372 [341] [After great pain, a formal feeling comes - ] 2572
373 [501] [This World is not conclusion] 2572
381 [326] [I cannot dance opon my Toes - ] 2573
395 [336] [The face I carry with me - last - ] 2573
407 [670] [One need not be a Chamber - to be Haunted - ] 2574
409 [303] [The Soul selects her own Society - ] 2574
411 [528] [Mine - by the Right of the White Election!] 2575
446 [448] [This was a Poet - ] 2575
448 [449] [I died for Beauty - but was scarce] 2576
466 [657] [I dwell in Possibility - ] 2576
475 [488] [Myself was formed - a Carpenter - ] 2577
477 [315] [He fumbles at your Soul] 2577
479 [712] [Because I could not stop for Death - ] 2578
519 [441] [This is my letter to the World] 2578
576 [305] [The difference between Despair] 2579
588 [536] [The Heart asks Pleasure – first - ] 2579
591 [465] [I heard a Fly buzz - when I died - ] 2579
598 [632] [The Brain - is wider than the Sky - ] 2580
600 [312] [Her - last Poems - ] 2580
620 [435] [Much Madness is divinest Sense - ] 2581
627 [593] [I think I was enchanted] 2581
648 [547] [I’ve seen a Dying Eye] 2582
656 [520] [I started Early - Took my Dog - ] 2582
675 [401] [What Soft - Cherubic Creatures - ] 2583
760 [650] [Pain - has an Element of Blank - ] 2584
764 [754] [My Life had stood - a Loaded Gun - ] 2584
788 [709] [Publication - is the Auction] 2585
796 [824] [The Wind begun to rock the Grass - ] 2585
817 [822] [This Consciousness that is aware] 2586
843 [978] [It bloomed and dropt, a Single Noon - ] 2586
857 [732] [She rose to His Requirement - dropt] 2587
895 [1068] [Further in Summer than the Birds] 2587
935 [1540] [As imperceptibly as Grief] 2588
1096 [986] [A narrow Fellow in the Grass] 2588
1108 [1078] [The Bustle in a House] 2589
1163 [1138] [A Spider sewed at Night] 2589
1243 [1126] [Shall I take thee, the Poet said] 2590
1263 [1129] [Tell all the Truth but tell it slant - ] 2590
1353 [1247] [To pile like Thunder to it’s close] 2590
1454 [1397] [It sounded as if the Streets were running] 2591
1489 [1463] [A Route of Evanescence] 2591
1577 [1545] [The Bible is an antique Volume - ] 2591
1593 [1587] [He ate and drank the precious Words - ] 2592
1665 [1581] [The farthest Thunder that I heard] 2592
1668 [1624] [Apparently with no surprise] 2593
1675 [1601] [Of God we ask one favor, that we may be
forgiven - ] 2593
1715 [1651] [A word made Flesh is seldom] 2593
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1773 [1732] [My life closed twice before it’s close] 2594
Letter Exchange with Susan Gilbert Dickinson on
Poem 124 [216] 2594

REBECCA HARDING DAVIS (1831–1910) 2597

Life in the Iron-Mills 2599

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHIES A1
PERMISSIONS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS A15
INDEX A17