O IMPERADOR DO BRASIL E OS SEUS AMIGOS DA NOVA-INGLATERRA

O IMPERADOR DO BRASIL E OS SEUS AMIGOS DA NOVA-INGLATERRA

Explica??o

Apresenta o Museu Imperial, neste n?mero de seu Anu?rio, um trabalho do prof. David James, acerca das rela??es entre d. Pedro II e os seus amigos da Norte Am?rica.

N?o ? a primeira vez que honra o prof. James as p?ginas desta publica??o. No volume referente a 1946 apresentou ele erudito e interessante estudo sabre o pintor franc?s Raymond Quinsac Monvoisin, artista ligado ? arte brasileira do Segundo Reinado, tendo, nessa oportunidade, a colabora??o do sr. Francisco Marques dos Santos, profundo conhecedor de nossa hist?ria, e cuja sempre solicitada e nunca negada coopera??o foi, mais uma vez, posta ? prova.

Vem agora o prof. James trazer-nos o resultado de suas laboriosas pesquisas em arquivos nacionais e estrangeiros, avultando entre aqueles a preciosa cole??o de documentos da fam?lia imperial brasileira, agora incorporada ao patrim?nio deste museu.

As rela??es entre o imperador e os s?bios estrangeiros n?o ? assunto in?dito no Anu?rio. J? no volume VIII, referente a 1947, foi publicado um substancioso estudo sobre o tema, intitulado: "Dom Pedro II e os intelectuais portugueses", de autoria do saudoso diretor desta casa, Alcindo Sodr?.

O trabalho do prof. David James ? obra primacial para o estudo das rela??es entre os nossos dois pa?ses e ningu?m mais indicado para faz?-lo que quem, como o autor, vem se dedicando ? pesquisa de fatos e temas relacionados com a hist?ria e a literatura latinoamericanas.

Deu o autor ao seu trabalho o t?tulo: "The emperor of Brazil and his New England friends". Foram os originais traduzidos ? introdu??o e pref?cio, pelo conservador M?rio Jos? da Silva Cruz, chefe da Divis?o de Ourivesaria do Museu Imperial, e o restante pelo signat?rio destas linhas.

Nestas condi??es, vai, em tipo menor, a tradu??o do texto do professor James, encontrando-se, em p? de p?gina, as notas originais em ingl?s, figurando, as em portugu?s, no fim de cada cap?tulo, para n?o sobrecarregar o texto.

Louren?o Luiz Lacombe

(Chefe da Divis?o de Documenta??o Hist?rica)

Preface

This volume is an account of the friendship of the second Emperor of Brazil, the magnanimous Dom Pedro II with his friends in North America: the Reverend James Cooley Fletcher, the Agassiz family, and the poets, Longfellow and Whittier. The story of their acquaintance is told almost entirely in their own words by the arrangement in chronological sequence of the 130 unpublished letters which were exchanged between them over a period of nearly thirty years.

The original letters from the New Englanders to Dom Pedro are in the Archives of the Imperial Museum in Petropolis in Brazil; the Emperor's answers to the Agassiz have been preserved in the Agassiz Papers in the Houghton Library at Harvard, while his letters to Longfellow are in the vault at the Longfellow House in Cambridge. If Dom Pedro wrote any letters to Whittier they have presumably been lost. It is certain that the Emperor wrote one letter to the Reverend Fletcher in 1877, but it has not been possible to find it.

It is through the kind permission of the three custodian collections that the entire group of letters is now being made public. The fifty-two letters by Louis Agassiz constitute what is believed to be the largest group of letters, addressed to a single correspondent, by the eminent American scientist that has yet been published.

The intersticial material and the notes attempt to provide links between the letters where pertinent material from closely related sources could be introduced. The editor is grateful to Miss Caroline Dunn of the Indiana Historical Society for a wealth of documentation from the Fletcher Papers; to the late Henry Wadsworth Longefellow Dana and to Mr. Thomas de Valcourt for material in the Longfellow House in Cambridge; to Mr. William Jackson of the Houghton Library of Harvard University; to Professor Harcourt Brown of Brown University for many helpful suggestions; to the Essex Institute in Salem; to the Boston Society of Natural History; and to the entire staff of the Museu Imperial in Petropolis, particularly to its Director, Dr. Alcindo Sodr?, to its Curator, Senhor Paulo Olinto de Oliveira, and to its Historical Advisor, Senhor Francisco Marques dos Santos.

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