ed in Boston and edited by S. G. Goodrich. This annual was the
first of a series undertaken in America, on the plan of similar volumes
published under many names in England. It has a permanent value for
literary historians in this country as containing many of Hawthorne's
"Twice-Told Tales" in their original form, but often left anonymous, and
sometimes signed only by his initial (H.). In the list of his own early
publications given by Longfellow to George W. Greene under date of March
9, 1833, he includes, "7. In 'The Token' for 1832, a story.... 8. In the
same, for 1833, a story." To identify the contributions thus affords a
curious literary puzzle. The first named volume--"The Token" for
1832--contains the tale of a domestic bereavement under the name of "The
Indian Summer;" this has for a motto a passage from "The Maid's
Tragedy," and the whole story is signed with the initial "L." This would
seem naturally to suggest Longfellow, and is indeed almost conclusive.
Yet curiously enough there is in the same volume a short poem called "La
Doncella," translated from the Spanish and signed "L....," which is
quite in the line of the Spanish versions he was then writing, although
not included in Mr. Scudder's list of his juvenile or unacknowledged
poems. To complicate the matter still farther, there is also a story
called "David Whicher," dated Bowdoin College, June 1, 1831, this being
a period when Longfellow was at work there, and yet this story is wholly
remote in style from "The Indian Summer," being a rather rough and
vernacular woodman's tale. Of the two, "The Indian Summer" seems
altogether the more likely to be his work, and indeed bears a distinct
likeness to the equally tragic tale of "Jacqueline" in "Outre-Mer,"--the
one describing the funeral of a young girl in America, the other in
Europe, both of them having been suggested, possibly, by the recent
death of his own sister.

In the second volume of "The Token" (1833) the puzzle is yet greater,
for though there are half a dozen stories without initials, or other
clue to authorship, yet not one of them suggests Longfellow at all, or
affords the slightest clue by which it can be connected with him, while
on the other hand there is a poem occupying three pages and signed H. W.
L., called "An Evening in Autumn." This was never included by him among
his works, nor does it appear in the list of his juvenile poems and
translations in the Appendix to Mr. Scudder's edition