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William Gilmore Simms's two-volume collection, Poems Descriptive, Dramatic, Legendary and Contemplative was published simultaneously in Charleston and New York in early January 1854.[1] In its 700 pages of text, it was the most complete anthology of Simms's verse and consisted of the author's own selections from his nearly 2,000 poems in his sixteen earlier books of verse puplished from 1825 to 1850, and the uncollected fugitive pieces from scores of American magazines, journals, and newspapers over a twenty-five year span. Because Poems is one of the worthiest little-known collections of American poetry of its time, the recent discovery of its unpublished preface is a significant event.[2]
The preface is in the poet's hand and at one point, at least, was intended to serve as an introduction to the collection. It is dated from Woodlands, the poet's home on the Edisto River in Barnwell District, South Carolina, and is dated 19 December 1852, at the time Simms was readying the manuscript of volume one of Poems for shipment to his publisher J. S. Redfield in New York. By 25 January 1853, he was reporting that he had sent the entirety of volume one on a steamer to that city.[3] By October 1853, Simms was expecting the two-volume edition to issue from the press, but it did not appear until early the next year.[4]
When the volumes did appear, the preface was absent. There is no evidence as to why. The extant preface is heavily revised with interlinings, and probably represents a preliminary draft of a recopied version sent to Redfield, if indeed Simms did send it. It is impossible to say whether it was Simms or his editor who deleted it from the published work.
In either case, the preface provides valuable information about the special care the poet took in selecting, revising, and polishing his poems, and thus
The content and spirit of the preface accord well with Simms's statement of 14 January 1852 that he wished "to revise and make myself as worthy as possible in the eyes of future criticism."[5] The concern over his text that he expressed in his preface was commensurate with his declaration to Evert Duyckinck on 24 November 1853, that "my poetical works exhibit the highest phase of the Imaginative faculty which this country has yet exhibited, and the most philosophical in connection with it. This sounds to you very egotistical, perhaps, but I am now 47 years old, and do not fear to say to a friend what I think of my own labor. The vulgar taste for poetry which requires little more at any time than lucid and liquid commonplaces, I do not contemplate at all, and my desire is rather to put myself on record for future judgment than to become a temporary cry for the hurrying mob."[6] Of popular contemporary poetry in America, Simms wrote that "Your song must be such as one can read running, and comprehend while munching pea-nuts."[7] For Simms, poetry was patently not as "commonly thought to be the mere purpose of the idle hour, a soothing pastime for writer and reader"[8] or "elegant trifles" written from an "occasional dalliance" with the Muse.[9] To Duyckinck again, he criticized modern American poetry, "the merits of which lie upon the surface."[10] Simms summarized his credo by saying that "all the great authors . . . were all professional authors, — surrendering life to this one object. Nothing that we know, has ever come from amateur authorship, but dilletantism, affectation, pretence."[11]
These statements and the reinforcing words of the preface reveal Simms's professionalism and high seriousness. It is important that after nearly a century and a half, his preface finally be published as an aid to our understanding that as a poet, Simms was a careful and meticulous craftsman and a man of proper, serious, and honorable intent. His preface gives us further indication of the reasons why he was indeed "a good poet, versatile, accessible, learned, and passionate in feeling" with an ease of technique that makes his verse "inviting" to the modern reader.[12]
Here follows Simms's preface, printed for the first time, in its entirety
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