Emma Marshall and Longfellow: Some Additions to Hilen's Letters

Extract

In the Introduction to the first volume of The Letters of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Cambridge, Mass., Belknap Press, 1966– ), Andrew Hilen recognizes that his edition can make no claim to completeness: there are still likely to come to light some of the early letters known to have been written but which he has been unable to trace. Though he considers it improbable that the rinding of lost correspondence will necessitate any fundamental reassessment of the poet's character or of his literary work, Hilen thinks it ‘nevertheless obvious that many of these unrecovered letters contained information that would interest both Longfellow's biographer and the critic of his poetry’ (pp. 4–5). These comments are perfectly applicable to the letters from Longfellow to Mrs Emma Marshall, nee Martin, which are to be found in Beatrice Marshall's memorial of her mother, Emma Marshall, a biographical sketch (London, Seeley & Co., 1900).