As far as the record goes the outward life of Francis Jammes has been uneventful. In a remarkable poem, "A Francis Jammes," his friend and fellow-poet, Charles Guérin, has drawn an unforgetable picture of this Christian Virgil in his village home. The ivy clings about his house like a beard, and before it is a shadowy fire, ever young and fresh, like the poet's heart, in spite of wind and winters and sorrows. The low walls of the court are gilded with moss. From the window one sees the cottages and fields, the horizon and the snows. Jammes was born at Tournay in the department of Hautes Pyrénées on December 2, 1863, and spent most of his life in this region. He was educated at Pau and Bordeaux, and later spent a short time in a law office. Early in the nineties he wrote his first volumes, slender _plaquettes_ with the brief title "Vers." It is interesting that one of these was dedicated to that strange English genius, Hubert Crackanthorpe, the author of "Wreckage" and "Sentimental Studies." This dedication, and the curious orthography (the book was set up in a provincial printery) led a reviewer in the _Mercure de France_ into an amusing error, in that he suggested that the book had been written by an Englishman whose name, correctly spelled, should perhaps be Francis James. Since then his life has been wholly devoted to literature and he has published a considerable number of volumes of poetry and prose which by their very titles give a clue to the spirit pervading the author's work. Among the more important of these are: _De l'Angelus de l'Aube à l'Angelus du Soir, Le Deuil des Primevères, Pomme d'Anis ou l'Histoire d'une Jeune Fille Infirme, Clairières dans le Ciel_, a number of series of _Géorgiques Chrétienne_, etc. The present volume consists of a translation of _Le Roman du Lièvre_, one of the most delightful of Francis Jammes' earlier books. In it he tells of Rabbit's joys and fears, of his life on this earth, of the pilgrimage to paradise with St. Francis and his animal companions, and of his death. This book was published in 1903, and has run through many editions in France. A number of characteristic short tales and impressions of Jammes' same creative period have been added. To turn a work so delicate and full of elusiveness as Jammes' from one language into another is not an easy task, but it has been a labor of love. The translator hopes that she has accomplished this without too great a loss to the spirit of the original. G.E. ROMANCE OF THE RABBIT BOOK I