Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books
No part of a book is so intimate as the Preface. Here, after the long labor of the work is over, the author descends from his platform, and speaks with his reader as man to man, disclosing his hopes and fears, seeking sympathy for his difficulties, offering defence or defiance, according to his temper, against the criticisms which he anticipates. It thus happens that a personality which has been veiled by a formal method throughout many chapters, is suddenly seen face to face in the Preface; and this alone, if there were no other reason, would justify a volume of Prefaces.
Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books (1909) includes works by Spenser, Raleigh, Bacon, Newton, Dryden, Fielding, Johnson, Wordsworth, Hugo and Whitman.