of a Southern Matron;” “Ruth Raymond, or Love’s Progress;” “Poetry of Travelling in the United States;” “Tales and Ballads;” “Verses of a Lifetime;” “Letters of Eliza Wilkinson, during the invasion of Charleston;” also, several volumes for youth, now collected in one, and recently republished, as “Mrs. Gilman’s Gift Book.” The “Poetry of Travelling,” “Tales and Ballads,” and “Eliza Wilkinson,” are out of print. The “Oracles from the Poets,” and “The Sibyl,” which occupied me two years, are of later date.
On the publication of the “Recollections of a New England Housekeeper,” I received thanks and congratulations from every quarter, and I attribute its popularity to the fact that it was the first attempt, in that particular mode, to enter into the recesses of American homes and hearths, the first unveiling of what I may call the altar of the Lares in our cuisine.
I feel proud to say that a chapter in that work was among the first heralds of the temperance movement, a cause to which I shall cheerfully give my later as well as earlier powers.
My ambition has never been to write a novel; in the “Matron” and “Clarissa Packard” it will be seen that the story is a mere hinge for facts.
After the publication of the “Poetry of Travelling,” I opened to a notice in a review, and was greeted with, “This affectation will never do.” It has amused me since to notice how “this affectation” has spread, until we have now the “Poetry of Teaching,” and the “Poetry of Science.”;
My only pride is in my books for children. I have never thought myself a poet, only a versifier; but I know that I have learned the way to youthful hearts, and I think I have originated several styles of writing for them.
While dwelling on the above sketch, I have discovered the difficulty of autobiography, in the impossibility of referring to one’s faults. Perchance were I to detail the personal mistakes and deficiencies of this long era, I might lose the sympathy which may have followed me thus far.
I have purposely confined myself to my earlier recollections,
