Owing to the scarcity of printed matter relating to native composers, and the utter incompleteness and bias of what exists, I have based this book almost altogether on my own research. I studied the catalogues of all the respectable music publishers, and selected such composers as seemed to have any serious intentions. When I heard of a composer whose work, though earnest, had not been able to find a publisher, I sought him out and read his manuscripts (a hideous task which might be substituted for the comparative pastime of breaking rocks, as punishment for misdemeanors). In every case I secured as many of each composer's works as could be had in print or in manuscript, and endeavored to digest them. Thousands of pieces of music, from short songs to operatic and orchestral scores, I studied with all available conscience. The fact that after going through at least a ton of American compositions, I am still an enthusiast, is surely a proof of some virtue in native music. A portion of the result of this study was published _au courant_ in a magazine, awakening so much attention that I have at length decided to yield to constant requests and publish the articles in more accessible form. The necessity for revising many of the opinions formed hastily and published immediately, the possibility now of taking the work of our musicians in some perspective, and the opportunity of bringing my information up to date, have meant so much revision, excision, and addition, that this book is really a new work. The biographical data have been furnished in practically every case by the composers themselves, and are, therefore, reliable in everything except possibly the date of birth. The critical opinions gain their possibly dogmatic tone rather from a desire for brevity than from any hope--or wish--that they should be swallowed whole. No attempt to set up a standard of comparative merit or precedence has been made, though it is inevitable that certain music-makers should interest one more than certain others even more worthy in the eyes of eminent judges. It may be that some inspectors of this book will complain of the omission of names they had expected to find here. Others will feel a sense of disproportion. To them there is no reply but a pathetic allusion to the inevitable incompleteness and asymmetry of all things human. Many will look with skepticism at the large number of composers I have thought worthy of inclusion. I can only say that the fact that an artist has created one work of high merit makes him a good composer in my opinion, whether or no he has ever written another, and whether or no he has afterward fallen into the sere and yellow school of trash. So Gray's fame is perennial,--one poem among many banalities.