NOTE THE following Catalogue is designed to bring into an orderly group the authors for whom Houghton, Mifflin & Co. act as publishers. The brief biographical sketches have been prepared with great care, and are intended to supply that condensed information which a reasonable curiosity as to the personality of authors demands. The order of the authors is alphabetical; the order of the books under each author is in the main chronological, the latest publication being placed first, and the earliest last; but in a few instances, especially where a series of volumes is involved, this rule has been broken; where two dates are given, it will be understood that the later stands for a revision or reissue. The books named are in cloth binding, except where otherwise designated, as in paper-bound series; but in almost all cases, in all in fact of what are known as standard books, the publications may be had in various styles of extra binding. It has been thought serviceable to set forth many of the publications in classified form. A special feature of the issues of this house is the grouping of books not upon a merely mechanical basis, but with reference to encyclopædic and continuous methods. The several Libraries and Series thus will be found in alphabetical order at the close of the Catalogue, as well as the groups of anthologies, professional books, and periodicals. A brief sketch of the history and organization of the house precedes the work. The publishers take this occasion to thank the authors, whose agents they are, for the courtesy with which they have supplied the information desired. It did not appear practicable to add the portraits of authors, these will be found in large number in the Portrait Catalogue, but in view of the long-continued and exclusive relations held by the house with the six great American authors who are everywhere recognized as the men of the classic period, a group of these is given as a frontispiece. 4 PARK ST., Boston, January, 1899. V A Sketch of the Firm OF HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY I HE founder of the publishing house of Houghton, Mifflin and Company was Henry Oscar Houghton, and the beginnings of the business are to be found in his personal ventures long before the firm took its present style. Mr. Houghton was born in the little vil lage of Sutton, Vermont, April 30, 1823. At the age of thirteen he became an apprentice in the office of the Burlington Free Press, and in the mechanical training there received he laid in part the foundation of his business success. A more important foundation was in the intellectual training upon which he afterward entered. An elder brother was at the time a student in the University of Vermont, and listening to his advice, the boy determined to acquire a collegiate education. At the age of nineteen he entered the same university with twelve and a half cents in his pocket, but with a substantial preparation and with a resource in his trade as a printer to which he turned from time to time as a means of support. Mr. Houghton's first purpose, like that of many college graduates of his day, was to take up teaching until he could decide upon his permanent vocation; but failing to find a favorable opportunity, he took up the work of a reporter on the Boston Traveller. It was while he was engaged on the newspaper that the publication of a scholarly work by one of the publishing houses in Boston demanded a proof-reader trained in the classics, and the task came to Mr. Houghton. The renewal of his old art opened the way, and though at first reluctant, since in the eyes of most in those days a college education seemed thrown away on a printer, he resolved to turn to printing as his vocation, and in January, 1849, he joined Mr. Bolles, then of the firm of Freeman and Bolles, in establishing a printing office under the style of Bolles and Houghton. Mr. Freeman retained for a while |