The last several years have been devoted to the collecting and
classifying of Kentucky books and authors from Filson, in 1784, to Mr.
Allen, in 1912. While the author has done other things, this has been
his most serious business.
Of the more than a thousand Kentucky writers, one hundred and
ninety-six, or those who achieved considerable reputation in their day
and generation, or others to whom fame came late, are now discussed.
The author hopes to publish within the next two or three years a
_Dictionary of Kentucky Writers_, which will attempt to bring together
in brief biographical and critical notes all of Kentucky's literary
workers from the beginning until the present time. The crossroads poet
is a most elusive, most diffident figure, but I shall do my best to
bring him into the _Dictionary_ that is to be.
I have received assistance from many quarters. Colonel Reuben T.
Durrett, Dr. Henry A. Cottell, General Bennett H. Young, Colonel
Robert M. Kelly, Mrs. Evelyn Snead Barnett, Mrs. Elvira Miller
Slaughter, and Mr. George T. Settle, of Louisville, Kentucky, have
aided me in many directions. Mr. George McCalla Spears, of Dallas,
Texas, author of _Dear Old Kentucky_, and the owner of one of the best
collections of Kentucky books ever gotten together, I have to thank
for a catalogue of his library and a dozen informing letters. Judge
James H. Mulligan, Miss Anna Totten, Mrs. Annie Gratz Clay, Miss Jo
Peter, and Mr. James M. Roach, of Lexington, Kentucky, have loaned and
given me many rare Kentucky items; to Mr. William Kavanaugh Doty, of
Richmond, Kentucky, Mrs. Daniel Henry Holmes, of Covington, Kentucky,
Mrs. Lucien Beckner, of Winchester, Kentucky, Dr. Thomas E. Pickett,
of Maysville, Kentucky, State Librarian Frank K. Kavanaugh, of
Frankfort, Kentucky, Mr. Alexander Hill, and Miss Marian Prentice
Piatt, of Cincinnati, Ohio, Mr. Henry Cleveland Wood, of Harrodsburg,
Kentucky, Mr. Paul Weir, of Owensboro, Kentucky, Mr. Ingram Crockett,
of Henderson, Kentucky, Mrs. Mary Addams Bayne, of Shelbyville,
Kentucky, Miss Leigh Gordon Giltner, of Eminence, Kentucky, and Mrs.
Caroline S. Valentine, of New Castle, Kentucky, the majority of whom
are writers, I am doubly indebted for facts regarding their own work,
as well as for what I now more especially thank them--information
concerning other Kentucky writers.
Death found the two best friends, perhaps, this work had during the
course of its preparation, when it took Charles J. O'Malley, the
Kentucky poet and critic, and Jahu Dewitt Miller, the Philadelphia
lecturer and bookman. Both of these men had just gotten into the
spirit of the work when they died within a year of each other.
O'Malley wrote the most illuminating letters concerning Kentucky
authors it has been my good fortune to receive; Miller made the most
gratifying and surprising additions to my collection of Kentuckiana,
exceedingly scarce volumes and pamphlets which he alone seemed able to
unearth from the old bookshops of the country. The memories of them
both must be ever green with me and in this work.
I have to thank Mr. Allen for his very fine introduction. To have
one's name associated with his is reward sufficient for the years of
toil and sacrifice this work has demanded of its author.