The Nation - 1904

From The Nation 79, no. 2047 (September 1904): 245-246.

An Index to Poetry and Recitations.... Including over 30,000 titles from 369 books. Edited by Edith Granger, A.B. Chicago: A.C. McClurg & Co. 1904. 4to, pp. 970.

The "college girl" has set a high example of originality, intelligence, laboriousness, and accuracy in the 'Index to Poetry and Recitations' at the head of our list. The prose and verse (English and American) derived from so many collections is laid open to recovery by a faulty memory, or to discovery--for example, by one in search of appropriate readings or recitals on special days (Arbor Day, Labor Day, Washington's and Lincoln's birthdays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's) as detailed in an appendix. There is an index first of titles (881 pages); next of authors (some 200 pages); finally, of first lines, whether prose or verse. This last is all the aid that can, in the nature of the case, be afforded the defective verbal memory, which may, however, be endeavoring to trace a piece by some line, stanza, or period in the body of it. We have already mentioned the first appendix. There is a second, grouping charades, dialogues, plays, drills, pantomimes, parodies, and tableaux. There is a third, of noted personages--J. Q. Adams, Blaine, Caesar, Dickens, Hugo, Dr. Johnson, Landor, Bonaparte, Shakspere, Webster, Wordsworth, etc. A fourth appendix points the way to temperance selections.

Such an exhibition might be thought to suffice in the way of praise of this reference manual, which is presumably the most copious index of poetical first lines in existence. The "librarian, teacher, bookseller, elocutionist, etc.," for whom it is intended, will recognize it utility at a glance, and will give it a place beside Poole's Index. As our testing of the innumerable cross-reference has never found the diligent compiler nodding, we have no criticism to offer. What we have to say in closing is mere remark. Some prominent collections of verse have been passed over, and of course with some loss, especially in the middle and lower grades; the best poems occur in all, or at least in many. We will instance Bates's 'Cambridge Book of Poetry and Song,' Epes Sargent's 'Harper's Cyclopaedia of British and American Poetry," Fields and Whipple's 'Family Library of British Poetry,' which range with Dana, Bryant, and Coates, indexed by Miss Granger. It may be that the first part of Palgrave's 'Golden Treasury' was practically included in the collections availed of; the second part less probably. One may regret these because the text is more likely to be punctilious than in their American rivals-- a matter which Miss Granger could hardly pronounce upon for all her sources. In one narrow field, also we miss Higginson and Bigelow's 'American Sonnets' and Crandall's 'Representative Sonnets by American Poets,' however much they overlap Mr. Stedman's 'American Anthology' here indexed. Finally, and this by way of praise once more, the author-index is, as far as it goes, a very convenient table of contents for the poets embraced in the scheme. Bayard Taylor, for example, is displayed in three-quarters of a column, Father Tabb in one-half, Tennyson in four column, Wordsworth in rather more than four. Of the prose likewise, as, Webster in two and a half columns. Where else shall we go for this sort of thing? We are glad to observe that future editions are contemplated.

The Nation. v.79 Jul-Dec 1904. | HathiTrust https://hdl.handle.net/2027/chi.35590364?urlappend=%3Bseq=257,https://hdl.handle.net/2027/chi.35590364?urlappend=%3Bseq=257

Rights: Public Domain, Google-digitized.