Philip Freneau at Seventy

Abstract

Among the numerous files of old American newspapers owned by the Rutgers Library that of the New Brunswick Fredonian is one of the most rare. For the eighteen-twenties, indeed, only the file of the Library of Congress can approach that of Rutgers for completeness, and even it lacks a few numbers. Consequently when following the scent of uncollected poems by Philip Freneau, the poet of the Revolution and a resident of Monmouth County, New Jersey, Mr. Lewis Leary found several hitherto unrecognized poems by Freneau, and he also found a number of books which had belonged to the poet and which bear his autograph. In the following article Mr. Leary makes accessible to modern students of American literature these uncollected poems.Â