THE WRECK OF THE HESPERUS

BY

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

_ILLUSTRATED_



New York
1889


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INTRODUCTION.


"Norman's Woe" is the picturesque name of a rocky headland, reef, and
islet on the coast of Massachusetts, between Gloucester and Magnolia.
The special disaster in which the name originated had long been lost
from memory when the poet Longfellow chose the spot as a background
for his description of the "Wreck of the Hesperus," and gave it an
association that it will scarcely lose while the English language
endures. Nor does it matter to the legend lover that the ill-fated
schooner was not "gored" by the "cruel rocks" just at this point,