Mr. Masters was nearly fifty when this book appeared; it is a long time to wait for a reputation, especially if one is constantly trying to obtain a hearing. It speaks powerfully for his courage, tenacity, and faith that he should never have quit--and his triumph will encourage some good and many bad writers to persevere. Emboldened by the immense success of _Spoon River_, he produced three more volumes in rapid succession; _Songs and Satires_ in 1916, _The Great Valley_ in the same year, and _Toward the Gulf_ in 1918. It is fortunate for him that these works followed rather than preceded the _Anthology_; for although they are not destitute of merit, they seem to require a famous name to ensure a sale. It is the brand, and not the goods, that gives a circulation to these books. The pieces in _Spoon River Anthology_ originally appeared in William Marion Reedy's periodical, called _Reedy's Mirror_, the first one being printed in the issue for 29 May, 1914, and the others following week after week. A grateful acknowledgment is made in a brief preface to the volume, and the full debt is handsomely paid in a dedicatory preface of _Toward the Gulf_, which every one interested in Mr. Masters--and who is not?--should read with attention. The poet manfully lets us know that it was Mr. Reedy who, in 1909, made him read the Greek Anthology, without which _Spoon River_ would never have been written. Criticism is forestalled in this preface, because Mr. Masters takes a prose translation of Meleager, "with, its sad revealment and touch of irony"--exactly the characteristics of _Spoon River_--and turns it into free verse: The holy night and thou, O Lamp, We took as witness of our vows; And before thee we swore, He that [he] would love me always And I that I would never leave him. We swore, And thou wert witness of our double promise. But now he says that our vows were written on the running waters. And thou, O Lamp, Thou seest him in the arms of another. What Mr. Masters did was to transfer the method and the tone of the Greek Anthology to a twentieth century village in the Middle West, or as he expresses it, to make "an epic rendition of modern life." Even if it were desirable, how impossible it is to escape from the past! we are ruled by the dead as truly in the fields of art as in the domain of morality and religion. The most radical innovator can no more break loose from tradition than a tree can run away from its roots. John Masefield takes us back to Chaucer; Vachel Lindsay is a reincarnation of the ancient minstrels; Edgar Lee Masters owes both the idea and the form of his masterpiece to Greek literature. Art is as continuous as life.