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American Men of Letters.
EDITED BY
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER.
S. Lawrence, 1837. Illman & Sons.
N. P. Willis.
American Men of Letters.
NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS.
BY
HENRY A. BEERS.
BOSTON:
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY.
New York: 11 East Seventeenth Street.
The Riverside Press, Cambridge.
1890.
Copyright, 1885,
By HENRY A. BEERS.
All rights reserved.
The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A.
Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company.
PREFACE.
The materials for a life of Willis are richenough to be embarrassing. Most of his writingsare, in a greater or less degree, autobiographical;and it would be possible to make avery tolerable life of him, by arranging passagesfrom these in the right order, and linking themtogether with a few paragraphs of cold facts.Then, he lived very much in the world’s eye,and was constantly talked and written about,so that there is abundant mention of him innewspaper files, and in volumes of “Recollections,”etc., by his contemporaries. In additionto these printed sources, I have been furnished,by the kindness of Mrs. N. P. Willis, Miss JuliaWillis, and Mrs. Imogen Willis Eddy, withprivate letters, journals, and other MS. memorandaby Willis, which extend from his schooldays at Andover down to a few weeks before[vi]his death—of course not without lacunæ. AlthoughI have not quoted very freely from theseletters, they have been of the greatest service,b