| Completion and celebration belong together. There are many people to be celebrated for all each has done to make this book a reality. In writing there are many hands: voices that feed the mind; good and mistaken books and articles without which one could not have learned; particular teachers and students who led one on. It has always seemed to me one of the strangest of contradictions to have but a single name on a title page for this, one of the most genuinely collaborative acts I know. So, imagine all the following, and those I do not know enough to name, crowding across the spaces in and around my own name. To them should belong whatever credit is due, and to me, conventionally and fairly, the responsibility for what falls short. |
| Books like this one especially depend upon libraries. But libraries are given life by those who everyday re-create them. I have had the happy privilege for this project of being able to work at the American Antiquarian Society, the kind of library scholars dream about. Without its collection, but more importantly without the constant generosity, knowledge, and interest of its staff, this book could not have been accomplished. As always, I am thankful to John Hench for his hospitality. Nancy Burkett, Associate Librarian, not only gave every assistance but treated the project almost as her own. Joanne Chaison, head of Readers' Services, taught me how to use the many resources of the collection and introduced me to scholars in the reading room who proved, at several key points, of indispensable assistance, most especially Michael Winship, who took time away from his own research to spend an afternoon leading me through the intricacies of nineteenth-century American book publishing. Georgia Barnhill, Curator of Graphic Arts, responded to my requests with grace and efficiency. The librarians at Robert Frost Library at Amherst College were the first to show me how much a scholar depends upon these, his true colleagues. With this, as with all my other projects over the last twenty years, I could not have done without the hours, |
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