Page 55. "Lochinvar" comes from the _Poetical Works_ (Thomas Y.

Crowell Company, New York, 1894).

Page 56. This spirited poem of Browning's is from the _Complete Poetic and Dramatic Works_ (Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1895).

Page 58. The three poems by Tennyson in this collection are from _Poetic and Dramatic Works_ (Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston.

1898).

Page 63. This version of "America" is from the facsimile reproduction of the hymn in the author's handwriting found in _A History of Newton, Ma.s.sachusetts_, by S. F. Smith, D.D. (published, 1880, by The American Logotype Company, Boston). The original copy of "America,"

according to all the evidence, is the one in Dr. Smith's handwriting contained on a slip of waste paper which is now kept in the treasure room of the Harvard Library. In this original version the two notable points of difference from that given here are the reading "breathes"

for "breathe" in the third stanza, and "Our G.o.d" for "Great G.o.d" in the fourth stanza.

Page 64. This well-known pa.s.sage is the first stanza of Canto VI of Scott's _The Lay of the Last Minstrel_ (_Poetical Works_ above described).

Page 64. Miller's "Columbus" is from the Bear Edition of Miller's poems (Harr Wagner Publishing Company, San Francisco, 1909).

Page 65. Mrs. Hemans' poem is from _Complete Works_ (D. Appleton & Co., New York, 1847).

Page 67. The "Concord Hymn" and "The Rhodora," page 74, are from the _Poems_ (Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1899).

Page 67. This poem of Holmes' and "The Chambered Nautilus," page 77, are from the _Poetical Works_ (Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1895). The latter poem appeared originally in _The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table_.

Page 68. "O Captain! My Captain!" is from _Leaves of Gra.s.s_ (David McKay, Philadelphia, 1900).

Page 70. "To Lucasta" is from _Epodes, Odes, Sonnets, Songs, etc., etc., to which is added Aramantha, a Pastoral, by Richard Lovelace, Esq. A New Edition_ (Chiswick: from the Press of C. Whittingham, 1817).

Page 70. Byron's poem is from _Hebrew Melodies_ (London, printed for John Murray, 1815).

Page 71. "A Red, Red Rose" is from _Complete Poetical Works_ (Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1897).

Page 72. "The Greenwood Tree" is from _As You Like It_ (New Variorum Edition, 1890).

Page 72. This well-known sea song by Cunningham is from _The Songs of Scotland, Ancient and Modern_, Vol. IV (printed for John Taylor, London, 1825).

Page 73. "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud", or "The Daffodils," as it is often called, is from _Complete Poetical Works_ (Thomas Y. Crowell Company, New York, n. d.). The text is that of the edition of 1857.

Page 74. "To the Fringed Gentian" is from _Poetical Works_ (D.

Appleton & Co., New York, 1909). "To a Waterfowl," page 76, is from the same.

Page 79. "The n.o.ble Nature" is from the volume of Ben Jonson's poems in _The Canterbury Poets_, edited by William Sharp (published by the Walter Scott Publishing Company, London and Newcastle, n. d.).

Page 79. This poem of Wotton's is from _Reliquae Wottoniae_, etc., London, (printed by Thomas Maxey for R. Marriot, G. Bedel, and T.

Garthwait, 1651). The meaning of the third stanza is obscure. In this edition it runs as follows:

Who envies none that Chance doth raise, Nor Vice hath ever understood; How deepest wounds are given by praise, Nor rules of State, but rules of good.

Page 80. This inspiring poem by Clough is found in _Poetical Works_ (George Routledge & Sons, London, n. d.).

Page 80. "For A' That an' A' That" is from _The Edinburgh Book of Scottish Verse_ (Meiklejohn and Holden, London, 1910).

Page 82. The poem by Henley is from _Echoes_ (published by David Nutt, London, 1908). This poem is the fourth of the forty-seven poems in _Echoes._ The t.i.tle "Invictus" is not in the original.

Page 82. "Opportunity" is from _Poems by Edward Rowland Sill_ (Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1888).

Pages 85-86. These six fables are from _The Fables of aesop_, translated into English by Samuel Croxall, with new applications, morals, etc., by the Rev. George Fyler Townsend (Frederick Warne & Co., London, 1869). This is the second edition. There are, of course, scores of versions of the aesopian fables. The one selected is approved by Greek scholars for the fidelity of the translation, while its literary value is unusually high. The tagged-on morals and applications have been pruned away from the text.

Pages 87-88. The two fables of Bidpai are to be found in _The Tortoise and the Geese, and Other Fables of Bidpai_, retold by Maude Barrows Dutton (Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1908). They are reprinted here by permission of the publishers.

Page 89. These two metrical fables are from _Fables of La Fontaine,_ translated by Elizur Wright, Jr. (Worthington Company, New York, 1889). The French writer's fables, though usually not original in content, are clever and keen and shrewd, and this translation represents faithfully their thought and spirit.

Page 91. Both "The Old Woman and Her Pig" and "The Three Little Pigs"

are from _English Fairy Tales_, third edition (G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1910). The stories are from Halliwell's _Nursery Rhymes and Tales_, but are retold by Jacobs, who, as usual, improves the original without sinning against the mood and spirit of the "popular" story.

Page 95. "Hans in Luck" and "The Frog-Prince," are from the translation of Edgar Taylor, London, 1823. This, so far as the editor could determine, was the first translation into English, and it remains one of the best.

Page 98. "The Valiant Little Tailor" and "The Elves," are from _Grimms Household Tales_, translated by Margaret Hunt (George Bell & Sons, London, 1913). The two volumes of Miss Hunt's translation are, together with her notes and Andrew Lang's introduction, an important contribution to the folklore of the "popular" Fairy Story and Nursery Tale.

Page 105. "Cinderella" and "Blue Beard," are from _The Tales of Mother Goose_, translated from the French by Charles Welsh (D. C.

Heath & Co., New York, 1901). They are reprinted in this collection by permission of the publishers. _The Tales of Mother Goose_ were published in 1697. There have been dozens of translations, but Welsh's version is perhaps the most satisfactory.

Page 110. This version of "Whittington" is from _Amusing Prose Chap- Books, chiefly of Last Century_, edited by Robert Hays Cunningham (Hamilton, Adams & Co., London, 1889). The version is strikingly similar to the one given by Jacobs in _English Fairy Tales_, which, Jacobs says, was "cobbled up out of three chapbook versions."

Page 117. "The Ugly Duckling" is from _Fairy Tales and Stories_, translated by H. W. Dulcken (Rand-McNally & Co., Chicago, n. d.). The Dulcken translation published by A. L. Burt Company, New York, n. d., contains the same stories as the Rand-McNally translation, and eleven more.

Page 125. "The Flax" is from the translation of Caroline Peachey, _Danish Fairy Legends and Tales_ (George Bell & Sons, London, 1881). This is the "third edition, enlarged." It contains fifty-seven stories.

Neither of the Andersen stories used for this collection is a folk story--though, for tradition's sake, they are here placed with genuine folk stories. Of the fifty-seven stories in the Peachey translation, all but ten are entirely original with Andersen, and all of these ten he worked over to suit his purpose. Andersen, then, unlike Grimm, Jacobs, Lang, and others, is not a collector and teller of fairy stories, but a maker of fairy stories--if, indeed, they should be called fairy stories at all. In spirit and purpose and method Andersen belongs with the modern writers of fairy stories--with Macdonald, Stockton, Ingelow, and Barrie, rather than with the "dealers in the genuine article."

Page 133. This version of "Jack and the Beanstalk" is from Jacobs'

_English Fairy Tales_ above cited. Jacobs states that this telling came from Australia. It is the best version known to the editor--in fact, the only possible change to be desired is in the flippant ending, "The ogre fell down and broke his crown." This is too serious a matter for such lightness!

Page 142. The only story of Asbjornsen reprinted in this collection is from _Fairy Tales from the Far North_ (A. L. Burt Company, New York, n. d.). The translator is H. L. Braekstad. Asbjornsen's stories are sterling folk tales, but somewhat too gross and crude for the delicate stomach of the modern child.

Page 146. This Negro folk tale is from _Told by Uncle Remus_ (Grosset & Dunlap, New York, 1905. Copyright 1903-1904-1905 by Joel Chandler Harris). Reproduced here by courtesy of Doubleday, Page & Co.

Page 155. Mrs. Craik's story is the first tale in _The Adventures of a Brownie_ (Rand-McNally & Co., Chicago, 1911); it is printed here by permission of the publishers. The text, according to the editor, agrees with the standard text (Samson, Low, Marston, Low, and Searle, London, 1872).

Page 161. The text of "The King of the Golden River" is that found in _Ruskin's Works_ (American Publishers Corporation, New York, n.

d.). The versions commonly found in readers have been sadly mangled by editors--largely on the theory, it would seem, that children cannot understand the meaning of a word of more than two syllables.

Page 183. "Aladdin" is from _The Arabian Nights Entertainments_, translated by Jonathan Scott (printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, & Brown, London, 1811). The translation is based on Galland's French translation, the first translation into any European language; but Dr.

Scott states that the stories are "carefully revised and occasionally corrected from the Arabic." Of the many editions of _The Arabian Nights_--several of them excellent--this has always seemed, to the editor, the best.

The name in Scott's edition is spelled "Alla ad Deen," but the editor has thought it best to use the name most familiar to the English translations. The story has been altered slightly in that part which relates the circ.u.mstances following the marriage of the princess and the vizier's son. Quotation marks have been inserted throughout.

Page 267. "The Gorgon's Head" is from _The Wonder Book_ (Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1881).

Page 286. "Theseus" is from _The Heroes_ (_Kingsley's Works_, Macmillan & Co., London, 1879). One obvious blunder in spelling has been corrected.