The Complete Works of Brann - The Iconoclast, vol 1 | Page 3

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THE COMPLETE WORKS OF BRANN THE ICONOCLAST
VOLUME I
In putting into permanent form the complete works of William Cowper
Brann, twenty-one years after his death, the sole purpose of the present
publishers is to preserve in its entirety the genius of a writer whose
work, though produced under the stress of journalism, is destined to
endure as literature.
Upon the issues discussed by Brann, the publishers take no sides; they
do not stand as sponsors for, nor do they desire to appear in the light of
either approving or disapproving his opinions or methods. They were
friends and neighbors of many years' standing of the men and
institutions mentioned in Brann's writings, but were in no way involved
in the bitter controversies and deplorable events which led to Brann's
untimely and dramatic death.
The plan and arrangement of this twelve-volume set of Brann is simple.
The first volume is composed of articles of various length gathered
from miscellaneous sources, and includes some of the better known
articles from The ICONOCLAST. Volume II to XI inclusive are the
files of The ICONOCLAST (from February, 1895 to May, 1898,
inclusive), with the matter arranged approximately as it appeared in the

original publication. Volume XII contains the story of Brann's death
and various biographical and critical articles from the press of the day,
together with those of Brann's speeches and lectures which have been
preserved. At the close of Volume XII you will find a complete index
of subjects and of titled articles for the entire twelve volumes.
PREFACE BY MILO HASTINGS
As I read the proofs of the last of these volumes, wherein is told the
story of Brann's death, my cup of the joy of love's labor is embittered
with the gall of an impotent, futile rage against the Sower that flings
with mocking hand the seed of genius and recks not where it falls. The
germ of such a life as Brann's we can but accept in worshipful,
unquestioning gratitude, for the process of its spawning is too
entangled to unravel. But of the environment of his life we cannot
refrain from rebellious questioning, appreciative though we be of that
which was, and of our heritage of the unquenchable spirit that is and
shall be as long as our language shall last.
Genius he is, this only Brann we have; genius audacious, defiant, and
sublime; whose stature, though his feet be on the flat of the Brazos
bottom, towers effulgent over those effigies placed on pedestals by
orthodox popularity, and sickly lighted by professorial praise.
Nor is my anger born of the fact that Brann, as warped by his
environment of time and place, wasted thought on free silver
economics, spent passion on prohibition and negro criminals, lavished
wrath on provincial preachers and local politicians or alloyed his style
by the so-called "vulgarities," which alone could shock into attention
the muddle-headed who paid his printer's bill for the privilege of seeing
barnyard phrases and dunghill words in type.
All this, I can conceive, may have been the particular combination of
circumstances that were needed to bring to flower a germ of genius that,
had it been planted in last century's Boston, might have given us but
another Harvard classic--or environed in this century's Greenwich
Village only another free-versifier of souls a-jaunt amid
psycho-analytics and parlor Bolshevism.
The slouch-hatted, gun-toting, beer-drinking, woman- worshiping,
man-baiting Brann of Texas may have been the particular and only
Brann to have developed the colossal courage and fighting fearlessness
that gave his poet's soul the reach and stature, the strength and vigor to

raise himself above the mere music of his words.
Brann as he was when he heard the shot that killed him, I can accept
and proclaim as beyond the need and reach of apology or regret. But
what