When an author publishes a book 'out of his own head,' he writes the preface for his own pleasure. After reading over his book in print-to make sure that all the 'u's' are not printed as 'n's,' and all the 'n's' as 'u's' in the proper names-then the author says, mildly, in his preface, what he thinks about his own book, and what he means it to prove-if he means it to prove anything-and why it is not a better book than it is.But, perhaps, nobody reads prefaces except other authors; and critics, who hope that they will find enough in the preface to enable them to do without reading any of the...
When an author publishes a book 'out of his own head,' he writes the preface for his own pleasure. After reading over his book in print-to make sure t...
The stories begin with those which children like best-the old Blue Beard, Puss in Boots, Hop o' my Thumb, Little Red Riding Hood, The Sleeping Beauty, and Toads and Pearls. These were first collected, written, and printed at Paris in 1697. The author was Monsieur Charles Perrault, a famous personage in a great perruque, who in his day wrote large volumes now unread. He never dreamed that he was to be remembered mainly by the shabby little volume with the tiny headpiece pictures-how unlike the fairy way of drawing by Mr. Ford, said to be known as 'Over-the-wall Ford' among authors who play...
The stories begin with those which children like best-the old Blue Beard, Puss in Boots, Hop o' my Thumb, Little Red Riding Hood, The Sleeping Beauty,...
Our stories are almost all old, some from Ireland, before that island was as celebrated for her wrongs as for her verdure; some from Asia, made, I dare say, before the Aryan invasion; some from Moydart, Knoydart, Morar and Ardnamurchan, where the sea streams run like great clear rivers and the saw-edged hills are blue, and men remember Prince Charlie. Some are from Portugal, where the golden fruits grow in the Garden of the Hesperides; and some are from wild Wales, and were told at Arthur's Court; and others come from the firesides of the kinsmen of the Welsh, the Bretons. There are also...
Our stories are almost all old, some from Ireland, before that island was as celebrated for her wrongs as for her verdure; some from Asia, made, I dar...
Now as this is the very last book of all this series that began in the long long ago, perhaps you may like to hear something of the man who thought over every one of the twenty-five, for fear lest a story should creep in which he did not wish his little boys and girls to read. He was born when nobody thought of travelling in anything but a train-a very slow one-or a steamer. It took a great deal of persuasion to induce him later to get into a motor and he had not the slightest desire to go up in an aeroplane-or to possess a telephone. Somebody once told him of a little boy who, after giving...
Now as this is the very last book of all this series that began in the long long ago, perhaps you may like to hear something of the man who thought ov...
