Given in the name of Sarah Freeman (Ellis) Wheeler SONGS FROM THE NOVELISTS From Elizabeth to Victoria PREFACE. THIS volume is an attempt to bring together specimens of the lyric verse which is to be found scattered over English fiction from the days of Elizabeth till now. For the purposes of the work many hundred novels and romances have been examined, and the collection, as it stands, is the outcome of a long and assiduous study of the subject. The compiler would have liked to have reproduced examples of the poetic work of the younger school of living novelists, but it was necessary to put some limit to the size and scope of the volume, and some attractive songs known to the compiler have been omitted on account of the impossibility of covering the whole field of which they form only a part. To those contemporary writers who have so obligingly permitted the reprinting of their songs, the thanks of the compiler are most heartily tendered. He has also to acknowledge his very considerable obligations to the following firms for the courtesy with which they have sanctioned the reproduction of a number of copyright pieces: Messrs. George Bentley and Sons; Messrs. W. Blackwood and Sons; Messrs. Chapman and Hall, Limited; Messrs. Chatto and Windus; Messrs. Longmans and Co.; Messrs. Macmillan and Co.; Messrs. Routledge and Sons; Messrs. Smith, Elder, and Co.; Messrs. Ward, Lock, and Co. W. D. A. |