Page:The works of Anne Bradstreet in prose and verse.djvu/16

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PREFACE.


volume of "The Congregational Visiter," a small monthly magazine published in Boston, in 1844, by the Massachusetts Sabbath-School Society. Several extracts have also been published, at various times, in newspapers, by Mr. Dean Dudley, who has written some very interesting pieces concerning the author and her works, and who is known as the indefatigable genealogist of the Dudley and Bradstreet families. A good notice of Mrs. Bradstreet is contained in Duyckinck's "Cyclopedia of American Literature."

The contents of the manuscript book are now, for the first time, printed entire. For the use of it, in preparing this volume for the press, and also for copies of the first three editions of the "Poems," all of which are now extremely rare, I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. Samuel Bradstreet, of Dorchester.

The engraving of Governor Bradstreet, in this volume, is taken from a plate belonging to Mr. S. G. Drake, which he was so good as to allow to be used for this purpose.

In editing Mrs. Bradstreet's works, I have had the benefit of the advice and suggestions of several of my friends; but I am especially obliged, for such favors, to Dr. John Appleton, Assistant Librarian of the Massachusetts Historical Society.

JOHN H. ELLIS.

Charlestown, Mass.,
Jan. 31, 1867.