Chapter I: Preface

Of the Essays in this volume "Adventures among Books," and "Rab's Friend," appeared in _Scribner's Magazine_; and "Recollections of Robert Louis Stevenson" (to the best of the author's memory) in _The North American Review_. The Essay on "Smollett" was in the _Anglo-Saxon_, which has ceased to appear; and the shorter papers, such as "The Confessions of Saint Augustine," in a periodical styled _Wit and Wisdom_. For "The Poems of William Morris" the author has to thank the Editor of _Longman's Magazine_; for "The Boy," and "Mrs. Radcliffe's Novels," the Proprietors of _The Cornhill Magazine_; for "Enchanted Cigarettes," and possibly for "The Supernatural in Fiction," the Proprietors of _The Idler_. The portrait, after Sir William Richmond, R.A., was done about the time when most of the Essays were written--and that was not yesterday.