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[Southern Literary Messenger, September, 1835.]
WE are really sorry that we have no opportunity of noticing this beautiful little Annual at length, and article by article, in our present number: and this the more especially as the edition is even now nearly exhausted, and it will be hardly worth while to say any thing concerning the work in our next, by which time we are very sure there will not be a copy to be obtained at any price. The Gift is highly creditable to the enterprise of its publishers, and more so to the taste and talents of Miss Leslie. This we say positively — the ill-mannered and worse-natured opinion of the Boston Courier to the contrary notwithstanding. Never had Annual a brighter galaxy of illustrious literary names in its table of contents — and in no instance has any contributor fallen below his or her general reputation. The embellishments are not all of a high order of excellence. The Orphans, for example, engraved by Thomas B. Welch from a painting by J. Wood, is hard and scratchy in manner, and altogether unworthy of the book — while the head of the child in the Prawn Fishers, engraved by A. W. Graham from a painting by W. Collins, R. A. has every appearance of a cabbage. But the portrait of Fanny Kemble by Cheney, from Sully, is one of the finest things in the world, notwithstanding a certain wiriness above the hair. The likeness is admirable — the attitude exquisite — and the countenance is beaming all [page 51:] over with intelligence. The gem of the book, however, is the Smuggler's Repose, engraved by W. E. Tucker from a painting by J. Tennant. We repeat it, this is absolutely a gem — such as any Souvenir in any country might be proud to possess, and sufficient of itself to stamp a high character upon the Gift.
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Notes:
None.
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[S:1 - JAH08, 1902] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Editions - The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe (J. A. Harrison) (Review of The Gift for 1836)