Literature Relating to Staten Island 



Letters and Diary/ and Poems^ of Alan Seeger 



Alan Seeger was born in New York June 22, 1888, joined the 

 Foreign Legion of France in September 1914, atithe outbreak of 

 the European war, and was killed in action on the battlefield of 

 Belloy-en-Santerre July 4, 1916. He had, therefore, only just 

 passed his twenty-ninth birthday when he met his death. 



During the first ten years of his life he resided on Staten 

 Island and is remembered by many of us, especially, no doubt, 

 by those who were his fellow students at the Staten Island 

 Academy. He may, therefore, be included among our local 

 literati, even though his literary work was all accomplished after 

 his departure from our island. 



A short account of the life of the author, and comments on 

 the literary merits of his writings may be found in the volume 

 of poems, in the introduction written by William Archer. 

 Whether it was heredity or environment that was the most im- 

 portant factor in influencing the mental and the resultant physical 

 activities of Alan Seeger would be merely a matter of inference. 

 Archer says, in commenting on the Seeger family residence, which 

 was on Fort Hill: "From their home on the heights of Staten 

 Island the children looked out day by day upon one of the most 

 romantic scenes in the world — the gateway to the Western 

 Hemisphere. ... In the foreground lay Robbin's Reef Light- 

 house, in the middle distance the Statue of Liberty, in the back- 

 ground the giant curves of Brooklyn Bridge, and, range over 

 range, the mountainous buildings of ' downtown ' New York 



1 Letters and Diary | of ] Alan Seeger | New York | Charles Scribner's 

 Sons I 1917. 8° cloth, 218 p., frontispiece portrait of the author. 



2 Poems I by ] Alan Seeger | with an introduction | by | William Archer | 

 New York | Charles Scribner's Sons ] 1917. 8° cloth, 174 p. 



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