I have had nor rhyme nor reason
[Of the following poems, Echoes, A Game of Fives, the last three of the Four Riddles, and Fame’s Penny-Trumpet, are here published for the first time. The others have all appeared before, as have also the illustrations to The Hunting of the Snark.]
Preface to Fourth Thousand.
Most of the poems, included in this collection (first published, in 1883), had been previously published, as follows:—
Téma con Variazióni had appeared, in The Comic Times, in 1855: Ye Carpette Knyghte and The Three Voices, in The Train, in 1856: Hiawatha’s Photographing, in the same, in 1858: A Sea Dirge, in College Rhymes, in 1861: Melancholetta and Poeta fit, non nascitur, in the same, in 1862: The Lang Coortin’ and Size and Tears, in the same, in 1863: Atalanta in Camden Town, in Punch, in 1867.
All the above, except the first, were republished, with the addition of Phantasmagoria, A Valentine, and A Double Acrostic (the first of the Four Riddles in this volume), in the collection entitled Phantasmagoria and other Poems, first published in 1869.
The Hunting of the Snark first appeared, with the present illustrations, in 1876.
The other illustrations in this volume first appeared in 1883.
December, 1887.
