Evert A. Duyckinck is probably best remembered by modern literary and cultural historians as a key figure in the New York literary world from the late 1830s to the 1850s. He is especially prominent for scholars of major literary figures such as Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, and Washington Irving, with whom Duyckinck had important relationships; he served them and a host of others as an editor, an associate, and a friend. He was one of the figures at the center of New York culture, particularly in the 1840s and 1850s. The wealth of manuscript diaries he kept and letters he wrote and received are a virtual treasure trove for the historian, and when published, they might well prove to be the major portion of his legacy to literary history. These pages and more than seventeen thousand volumes from the personal library collected by him and his brother...