[1] To the posthumous edition of Becquer’s _Works_, Señor Correa
prefixed an account of the poet’s life. This, brief and often
indefinite as it is, remains the authentic biography. It has been
partially reproduced in English by Mrs. Humphry Ward, who published
in _Macmillan’s Magazine_, February, 1883, pp. 305-320, a valuable
article entitled: _A Spanish Romanticist: Gustavo Becquer_. Professor
Olmsted of Cornell, in his recent class-room edition of selected
_Legends, Tales and Poems_ by Becquer (Ginn and Company, Boston,
1907) contributes additional facts gathered from Spanish periodical
articles--of which he gives a bibliography--and in conversation with
Spaniards who had known the poet.
[2] Of the seventy-six poems that make up the _Rimas_, thirty-two
are given in literal English rendering by Lucy White Jennison (“Owen
Innsley”) as the third section of her _Love Songs and Other Poems_
(The Grafton Press, New York, 1883), and a few are similarly rendered
by Mrs. Humphry Ward in the article already mentioned. A complete
translation in English verse, by Jules Renard of Seattle, has just
come (1908) from The Gorham Press, Richard G. Badger, Boston.
[3] Not, to my knowledge, translated into English.
[4] Except for a few magazine waifs and strays, usually in abridged
form, and for seven out of the twelve stories in W. W. Gibbings’
_Terrible Tales_, where the translation, according to Professor
Olmsted, is “often inaccurate,” these legends have not before been
translated into English. The twenty-one here given include everything
even remotely in the nature of a tale contained in the three volumes,
with the exception of the two East Indian legends already mentioned,
and the two witchcraft tales in _From My Cell_. Good as these witch
stories are, it seemed a pity to take them out of their context.
What might be considered further omission is noted later. Of the
translations in this volume, several have appeared in _Short Stories_,
two in _The Churchman_, and one in the _Boston Evening Transcript_.
[5] And therefore has not been included in this volume.
[6] Not included in this volume because it should not be taken from
its context.