The remaining nine parts of the book treat in similar manner about seventy-five additional authors, embracing noted novelists, representative women poets of America; essayists, critics and sketch writers; great American historians and biographers; our national humorists; popular writers for young people; noted journalists and magazine contributors; great orators and popular lecturers. Thus, it will be seen that in this volume the whole field of American letters has been gleaned to make the work the best and most representative of our literature possible within the scope of a single volume. In making a list of authors in whom the public were sufficiently interested to entitle them to a place in a work like this, naturally they were found to be entirely too numerous to be all included in one book. The absence of many good names from the volume is, therefore, explained by the fact that the editor has been driven to the necessity of selecting, first, those whom he deemed pre-eminently prominent, and, after that, making room for those who best represent a certain class or particular phase of our literature. To those authors who have so kindly responded to our requests for courtesies, and whose names do not appear, the above explanation is offered. The omission was imperative in order that those treated might be allowed sufficient space to make the work as complete and representative as might be reasonably expected. Special attention has been given to _illustrations_. We have inserted portraits of all the authors whose photographs we could obtain, and have, also, given views of the homes and studies of many. A large number of special drawings have also been made to illustrate the text of selections. The whole number of portraits and other illustrations amount to nearly one hundred and fifty, all of which are strictly illustrative of the authors or their writings. None are put in as mere ornaments. We have, furthermore, taken particular care to arrange a number of special groups, placing those authors which belong in one class or division of a class together on a page. One group on a page represents our greatest poets; another, well-known western poets; another, famous historians; another, writers for young people; another, American humorists, etc. These groups are all arranged by artists in various designs of ornamental setting. In many cases we have also had special designs made by artists for commemorative and historic pictures of famous authors. These drawings set forth in a pictorial form leading scenes in the life and labors of the author represented. Illustration: THE NEW CONGRESSIONAL LIBRARY, WASHINGTON, D. C. TABLE OF CONTENTS.