IN the year 1877 the late Mr. Henry Stevens of Vermont, under the
pseudonym of ‘Mr. Secretary Outis,’ projected and initiated a literary
Association entitled THE HERCULES CLUB. The following extracts from the
original prospectus of that year explain this platform:
The objects of this Association are literary, social, antiquarian,
festive and historical ; and its aims are thoroughly independent
research into the materials of early Anglo-American history and
literature. The Association is known as THE HERCULES CLUB, whose
Eurystheus is Historic Truth and whose appointed labours are to clear
this field for the historian of the future.
“Sinking the individual in the Association the Hercules Club proposes
to scour the plain and endeavour to rid it of some of the many
literary, historical, chronological, geographical and other monstrous
errors, hydras and public nuisances that infest it . . . . Very many
books, maps, manuscripts and other materials relating alike to England
and to America are well known to exist in various public and private
repositories on both sides of the Atlantic. Some unique are of the
highest rarity, are of great historic value, while others are difficult
of access, if not wholly inaccessible, to the general student. It ís
one of the purposes therefore of the Hercules Club to ferret out these
materials, collate, edit and reproduce them with extreme accuracy, but
not in facsimile. The printing is to be in the best style of the
Chiswick Press. The paper with the Club’s monogram in each leaf is made
expressly for the purpose”.
The following ten works were selected as the first field of the Club’s
investigations, and to form the first series of its publications.
1. Waymouth (Capt. George) Voyage to North Virginia in 1605. By James
Rosier. London, 1605, 4°