This is volume eleven of Eva March Tappan's "A Friend in the Library" series, being a comprehensive guide to the writings of six seminal American poets including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, John Greenleaf Whittier, and Oliver Wendell Holmes. This volume deals specifically with the concept of literature, exploring its etymology and history with reference to these notable figures. "A Friend In The Library" is an easy-to-digest guide that will appeal to anyone with an interest in the English language, and it is not to be missed by students and teachers of English literature. Eva March Tappan (1854 - 1930) was an American author and teacher. Other notable works by this author include: "Adventures & Achievements" (1900), "Poems & Rhymes" (1900), and "In the Days of Queen Elizabeth" (1902). Many vintage books such as this are increasingly scarce and expensive. It is with this in mind that we are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with a specially-commissioned new biography of the author. This book was first published in 1909.