Abstract

In the Driftway
September 18, 1929 issue

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This article focuses on the author's views on reading the preface of a book. The author says that the preface is, if not the most important part of the book, at least essential to beginning it. For a reader to ignore the preface is not intelligent on his own account and unfair from the standpoint of the author. For it is in the preface, as a rule, that an author explains the scope and purpose of his volume and the circumstances connected with its writing. He gives just the material, in other words, which a real reader always wants as an approach to a book, and which an author is justified in asking anybody to acquaint himself with before attempting to pass judgment on the writing.

See Also:

PREFACES; BOOKS; PROLOGUES & epilogues; AUTHORS; READERS; WRITING
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