Stops of Various Quills (Barnes & Noble Digital Library)

This 1895 collection of verse, gorgeously illustrated by Howard Pyle, contains among other poems “The Bewildered Guest,” “Midway,” “From Generation to Generation,” “The Burden,” “Reward and Punishment,” and “Friends and Foes.” After losing his daughter a few years before, Howells proved with this collection that he was not an irrepressible optimist.