Better Dead - Courage

This is the only American edition of my books produced with my sanction, and I have special reasons for thanking Messrs. Scribner for its publication; they let it be seen, by this edition, what are my books, for I know not how many volumes purporting to be by me, are in circulation in America which are no books of mine. I have seen several of these, bearing such titles as Two of Them, An Auld Licht Manse, A Tillyloss Scandal, and some of them announce themselves as author's editions, or published by arrangement with the author. They consist of scraps collected andpublished without my knowledge, and I entirely disown them. I have written no books save those that appear in this edition.I am asked to write a few lines on the front page of each of these volumes, to say something, as I take it, about how they came into being. Well, they were written mainly to please one woman who is now dead, but as I am writing a little book about my mother I shall say no more of her here.Many of the chapters in Auld Licht Idylls first appeared in a different form in the St. James's Gazette , and there is little doubt that they would never have appeared anywhere but for the encouragement given to me by the editor of that paper.