In May '66, the seventeenth edition of this work was on sale in Paris.
The date of Mrs. Gatty's preface, it will be observed, is June '64,
and at that time, the eighth French edition only had been reached.
That it should be a popular book and command large sale wherever it
is known, will not surprise any one who reads it: the only remarkable
circumstance about it is, that it should not have been republished
here long ere this. Even this may probably be accounted for, on the
supposition that the title under which the translation was published
in England, was so unmeaning--conveying not the slightest idea of the
contents of the book--that none of our publishers even ventured to
hand it over to their "readers" to examine.
The author's title, _The History of a Mouthful of Bread_, while
falling far short of giving a clear notion of the entire scope of the
work, is shockingly diluted and meaningless, when translated _The
History of a Bit of Bread!_
To the translation of Mrs. Gatty, which is in the main an excellent
one, for she has generally seized upon the idea of the author and
rendered it with singular felicity, it may be very properly objected
that she has taken some liberties with the text when there was any
conflict of opinion between herself and her author, and has given her
own ideas instead of his, which is, probably, what she refers to when
she calls herself "to some extent editor."
The reader of this edition will, in all these cases, find the thought
of the author and not that of his translator; for the reason that a
careful examination of the original has convinced the publisher that
in every instance the author was to be preferred to the translator,
to say nothing of the right an author may have to be faithfully
translated.
Besides making these restorations, the copy from which this edition
was printed has been carefully compared with the last edition of the
author and a vast number of corrections made, and in its present shape
it is respectfully submitted and dedicated to every one (whose name
is legion, of course) who numbers among his young friends a "_my
dear child_" to present it to.