This work needs no apology.
Its value to the English-speaking world is two-fold. It preserves
for all time, in the form of a printed book, what might have
been scattered in the sheets of ephemeral publications. It is so
designed that these isolated monuments of prose and verse can be
studied, absorbed, and, if necessary, copied by the young aspirant
to literary honours.
Nothing is Good save the Useful, and it would have been sheer
vanity to have published so small a selection, whatever its merit,
unless it could be made to do Something, to achieve a Result in
this strenuous modern world. It will not be the fault of the book,
but of the reader, if no creative impulse follows its perusal, and
the student will have but himself to blame if, with such standards
before him, and so lucid and thorough an analysis of modern
Literature and of its well-springs, he does not attain the goal to
which the author would lead him.
The book will be found conveniently divided into sections
representing the principal divisions of modern literary activity;
each section will contain an introductory essay, which will form
a practical guide to the subject with which it deals, and each
will be adorned with one or more examples of the finished article,
which, if the instructions be carefully followed, should soon
be turned out without difficulty by any earnest and industrious
scholar of average ability.
If the Work can raise the income of but one poor journalist, or
produce earnings, no matter how insignificant, for but one of that
great army which is now compelled to pay for the insertion of
its compositions in the newspapers and magazines, the labour and
organizing ability devoted to it will not have been in vain.