The Orange Fairy Book(橙色童话)
Andrew Lang
Preface
The children who read fairy books, or have fairy books read to
them, do not read prefaces, and the 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 '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 eno…