Autograph manuscript signed, “An Apology for a Preface.”

Five pages (17 x 11 cm). Headed "Let me see proofs" in Lowell's hand. Ink smudge to first leaf.

[With:]

LOWELL, JAMES RUSSELL. Autograph letter signed. Westminster, [1888]. Two pages. Lowell's letter of enclosure for his "Apology": "I send back the Ms. as you wish. I have corrected a clip[?] or two here & there, for I was so hurried in order to keep my word with you that I did not read it over after writing it."

Lowell's original revised manuscript for "An Apology for a Preface," which appeared as a preface in his volume of collected lectures, The English Poets, The Camelot Series in 1888.

Lowell observes in part, "all prefaces may be said to have one valid excuse for being—namely, that the judicious reader can, and generally does, skip them, thus securing one pleasurable emotion at least from his book—a success beyond the average, if I may trust my own experience. And yet, feeling as I do my incompetence for this species of literature, in which I have no more practice than one has in dying, having written but one in my life, I see no great harm in doing … what I had rather not do at all …"

[With:]

LOWELL, JAMES RUSSELL. Autograph letter signed. Westminster, [1888]. Two pages. Lowell's letter of enclosure for his "Apology": "I send back the Ms. as you wish. I have corrected a clip[?] or two here & there, for I was so hurried in order to keep my word with you that I did not read it over after writing it."