of the poet at Baltimore's Western High School. She
volunteered her services and worked without pay for fifteen
years, typing poems and correspondence. Her collection of
Reese memorabilia was presented to Goucher College after her
death in 1952. Miss Reese's literary executor, Warren Wilmer Brown
, editor of Gardens, Houses & People, gave his collection
of Reesiana to Baltimore's Enoch Pratt Free Library. Other
library files consulted for this book are: Towson State
University, Towson, Maryland; the University of Baltimore;
Johns Hopkins University; the University of Maryland at
Baltimore County; the Maryland Historical Society; and the
Baltimore County Historical Society;

Some of the poet's personal papers--letters, clippings
both by her and about her, photographs, and items of
memorabilia--were retained by Edward Dietrich and were left at
his death to his daughters Sallie Dietrich Brown and Lizette
Dietrich Hannegan who graciously put them at my disposal.

The Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature lists her
published poems and articles back to 1890. "Daffodils", a poem
printed in The Century in April, '90 was the earliest listing.
The Reader's Guide, however, lists only the major
publications. Lizette Reese sent poems to many local and
regional newspapers and magazines across the country. There is
no central record of publication. Occasionally in her papers,
a clip will identify one of those which printed one of her
poems and these are included in this volume's periodical list.

Her books contain 401 individual poems; her narrative
poems ( Little Henrietta and The old House in the Country) are
composed of a total of 91 stanzas. Each chapter of her memoirs
is introduced by a verse: 12 in A Victorian Village; 13 in The
York Road. One hundred and six of the 175 poems printed in
periodicals, about 60 percent, also appear in her books. The
Waller Library collection includes approximately 150 poems in
holograph which are not included in her books or periodical
listings. It is probable, but unverifiable, that many of these
were published in small newspapers, magazines, and journals.
The body of Lizette Reese's published poetry appears to be
between 500 and 700 poems

I have selected 197 of those poems and the complete
narrative poem Little Henrietta as representative of her work
in her major themes. These are printed essentially as they
appeared in her little books. She taught and wrote in the last
third of the 19th century and the first two decades of the
20th, an era of precise, even excessive, punctuation. I,
taught in high school by women of similar tradition whom I
still revere (and fear), would not dare presume to modernize
that punctuation.

When you read the poems in this volume, you will have
partaken of the poetic soul of Lizette Woodworth Reese.

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