THE SCRAP-BOOK.

DEAR SIR :-This is a work which suggested itself twenty years ago, and to which I have since labored. It was suggested because the scrap-book I then had was the most popular book in my library. I judged other people by my friends, and went to work to supply what experience taught me was wanted.

WHY I CALL IT THE SCRAP-BOOK:

Ist. Because it is an old-fashioned, popular name, dear to all.

2d. Because it is generic, and if any scrap-book, or blank book for that pur. pose is called for at the book-stores, this, ready made, will be shown, and perhaps sold.

3d. Because the books nearest it (viz.: Field's Scrap-Book, books of Essays, Irving's Sketch-Book, and others) have all been popular and large sellers.

4th. If Volume I. took, and went, the same copyright offers a large field for succeeding volumes of it, that also would help sell more of Volume I., and vice

versa.

WHY IN THIS SHAPE ?

Ist. Because it carries with it the old, familiar scrap-book idea.

2d. Because it avoids the stereotyped idea of the usual books of quotations and selections, which are alone from the Standard Authors, and already in existence in another book form.

3d. Because it gives variation and restfulness to the rainy-day leisure-hour reader.

4th. Because being old, it is yet a novelty.

GENERAL REASONS FOR IT.

Ist. A scrap-book is universally popular. Here is a maturely made one, full of cream; and without the reader's trouble of making.

2d. It contains much very choice and chaste original matter that can be found nowhere else.

3d. It contains much old matter, that is ever dear, and wanted by all, that can be found in no other book.

4th. As a book of recitations and quotations it is new, and fits all classes. 5th. It preserves in a handy book form, a portion of the best current American literature-not heretofore in books.

M95614

3

6th. It has a thousand good things from as many authors who, with their friends, will wish copies, and be instrumental in helping to push it on the market.

7th. It fills the bill as an occasional helper, and comes to the rescue of the newspaper and miscellany, the speaker and reciter.

8th. It is not like the average book, inviting only a temporary run, with only a class of readers; but is suited to all classes, and never goes out of style, or date. 9th. Foreigners wish American folk-lore and The Scrap-Book contains it. These are my reasons for offering The Scrap-Book, as the product of twenty years' labor of love. Yours very truly,

E. L. C. WARD.

INTRODUCTION.

IT is just as true that the world loves a scrap-book, as it is that it loves the lover. Why it has not heretofore been given this want in handy popular form has long been a mystery to the writer. Long since have the fields of literature been well covered, yet the old-fashioned scrap-book has been left to the individual, and the ground between the book and the current literature of the day has remained comparatively untouched, in the face of the fact that in the newspaper and periodicals of the day is a class of the finest literature of the age. Writers now address themselves more to current literature than formerly; hence, many of the finest gems in prose and verse appear from week to week and are lost with the short life of the paper or magazine in which they are published. It will be admitted, therefore, that many of them deserve better fate, and that the language would be enriched by their preservation. It is to this class of literature The Scrap-Book addresses itself; and it would be incomplete were not in it also found many old gems which are familiar to the public, and copies of which are wanted by all. Many of their writers have long since passed over the river, and are unknown to the writer, if not to the world. Hence an apology is due, perhaps, to many of those helping to make up The Scrap-Book, insomuch as, in some instances, they were not consulted as to the selections used, or that imperfect and incomplete credits may, in some instances, be given. The scope of our labors, and the means at hand, would suggest it as an impossibility that it should be otherwise. In a few instances it may also be possible that selections have been made from others whose writings are not released. In many instances permission and aid have been cordially granted by those, without extracts from whose writings, no scrap-book would be complete. And in all cases, we trust that no individual damage has been done by the making of selections which was intended as the highest compliment of the writer to their merit and authors.

It is called The Scrap-Book, because that is really what it is. Simply a scrapbook. To this end, we have endeavored to preserve its identity as such, and trust the public will thus generously accept it; and that those who have contributed to its make-up, will accept its dedication as the highest regard of its

AUTHOR.