The Orange Fairy Book : Large Print

The children who read fairy books, or have fairy books read to them, do not read prefaces, andthe parents, aunts, uncles, and cousins, who give fairy books to their daughters, nieces, and cousins,leave prefaces unread.

For whom, then, are prefaces written? When an author publishes a book 'outof 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 meansit 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 findenough in the preface to enable them to do without reading any of the book.This appears to be the philosophy of prefaces in general, and perhaps authors might be moredaring and candid than they are with advantage, and write regular criticisms of their own books intheir prefaces, for nobody can be so good a critic of himself as the author-if he has a sense ofhumour.

If he has not, the less he says in his preface the better.