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This e-text is based on the 1851 Boston edition of Alonzo and Melissa. The story originally appeared in 1804 as a serial in the weekly Political Barometer of Poughkeepsie, N.Y., written by the newspaper’s editor, Isaac Mitchell. Pirated versions began to appear in 1811, giving Daniel Jackson, Jr., as author.

The book was printed as a single unit, without chapter divisions. The breaks in the e-text represent the 22 installments of the serial version. Footnotes are from the original (1851) text. They are shown here as inset sidenotes except where paragraph breaks make this positioning impractical.

Note that the standard punctuation for dialogue is

 “To this place, said Melissa, have I taken many a solitary walk....”

Typographical errors are shown with mouse-hover popups. All corrections were checked against other versions of the text. If an apparent error is the same in all available versions, or if the correct form was not deducible from the 1851 text alone, it was left unchanged. The word “invisible” means that the letter or punctuation mark is not present, but there is an appropriately sized blank space. Other types of additions and deletions are explained at the end of the text.

Chronology Quotations Other Editions

ALONZO AND MELISSA,

THE UNFEELING FATHER.

AMERICAN TALE.

In every varied posture, place, and hour,

How widowed every thought of every joy!

Young.

BY DANIEL JACKSON, Jr.

 BOSTON:

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