Transcribed from the 1892 David Nutt edition ,
ESSAYS
IN APPRECIATION
By W. E. HENLEY
LITERATURE
LONDON
Published by DAVID NUTT
in the Strand
1892
* * * * *
FIRST EDITION
Printing begun 28th October 1889,ended 13th May 1890
OrdinaryIssue—
1000 copies
Finest Japanese—
20 copies
SECOND EDITION
Printing begun May 25th, ended June18, 1892
1000 copies
Edinburgh: T. & A.CONSTABLE, Printers to Her Majesty
p. vTO THE MENOF
‘THE SCOTS OBSERVER’
Suggested by one friend and selected and compiled byanother, this volume is less a book than a mosaic ofscraps and shreds recovered from the shot rubbish of somefourteen years of journalism. Thus, the noteson Longfellow, Balzac, Sidney, Tourneur,‘Arabian Nights Entertainments,’Borrow, George Eliot, and Mr. Frederick Lockerare extracted from originals in‘London’—a print still rememberedwith affection by those concerned in it; those onLabiche, Champfleury, Richardson,Fielding, Byron, Gay, Congreve,Boswell, ‘Essays and Essayists,’Jefferies, Hood, Matthew Arnold,Lever, Thackeray, Dickens, M.Théodore de Banville, Mr. Austin Dobson, andMr. George Meredith from articles contributed to‘The Athenæum’; those on Dumas,Count Tolstoï’s novels, and the verse of Dr.Hake from ‘The Saturday Review’; thoseon Walton, Landor, and Heine from ‘TheScots Observer,’ ‘The Academy,’and ‘Vanity Fair’ respectively;while the ‘Disraeli’ has been piecedtogether from ‘London,’ ‘VanityFair,’ and ‘TheAthenæum’; the‘Berlioz’ from ‘The ScotsObserver’ and p.viii‘The Saturday Review’; the‘Tennyson’ from ‘The ScotsObserver’ and ‘The Magazine ofArt’; the ‘Homer andTheocritus’ from ‘VanityFair’ and the defunct‘Teacher’; the‘Hugo’ from ‘TheAthenæum,’ ‘The Magazine ofArt,’ and an unpublished fragment written for‘The Scottish Church.’ In all casespermission to reprint is hereby gratefully acknowledged;but the reprinted matter has been subjected to such a processof revision and reconstitution that much of it is practicallynew, while little or none remains as it was. I venture, then, to hope that the result,for all its scrappiness, will be found to have thatunity which comes of method and an honest regard forletters.
W. E. H.
Edinr. 8th May1890
Mr. Andrew Lang is del