This is the extended annotated edition including an extensive primer on the author's life and works as well as a detailed introductory note to the work itself.
There are some authors who take the world by storm, and, happening to produce at the first effort precisely what popular taste demands, escape the long probation of unrequited drudgery and unmerited neglect, and secure with one bold, brilliant leap the honor and emolument of literary success.
You will be in love with “ Kavanagh.” from the very start. You can wander through its fascinations for the ninety-ninth time, and its fragrance continues to linger about you. It is a pleasant companion for any leisure hour ; and so is everything that comes from the pen of its author. Longfellow stands by himself, peculiar and ever distinct. No one of his brotherhood resembles him, and he resembles no one of them.
A village teacher, a newly elected clergyman,an independent Yankee servant, and a couple of school girls are the dramatis persona. The plot is quite original. It turns on an accident to a carrier pigeon, which frightened by a kingbird misses its course, and bears a declaration of the young clergyman's love for one of the maidens to the house of her rival. The descriptions are all of a quaint and domestic kind, suitable to a portrayal of semi-rural life in New England.
