I have attempted, in this volume, to present a sketch of these “beginnings of literary property”--that is, to outline the gradual evolution of the idea that the producer of a literary work, the poet, ποιητής, the maker, is entitled to secure from the community not only such laurel-crown of fame as may be adjudged to his work, but also some material compensation proportioned as nearly as may be practicable to the extent of the service rendered by him. I have prefixed to the study of literary and publishing undertakings in Athens, Alexandria, and Rome, in which cities definite relations between authors and their public can first be traced, some preliminary sketches concerning the beginnings of literature in Chaldea, Egypt, India, Persia, China, and Japan. I admit at once that descriptions of legendary, prehistoric, or semi-historic periods, are not directly pertinent to my main subject. I have decided to include them, however, at the risk of criticism on the ground both of (necessarily) superficial treatment and of lack of relevance, because it seemed to me that the character of the earliest literary ideals and of the legendary literary productions of a people formed an important factor in helping to develop its later literary conditions, and was not without influence upon the relations of authors with their public, when such relations finally began to take shape. It is, for instance, a matter of very decided interest, in tracing the literary history of a nation, to ascertain whether the source and initiative of its earliest literature was the temple, the court, or the popular circles outside of temple or court; whether the first compositions were produced by the priests, or by annalists or poets working under the immediate incentive of the favor of the monarch, or whether, like the epics of Greece and the folk-songs of China, they came from authors among the people, and were addressed directly to popular sympathies and to popular ideals. It will be noted that I take pains to speak of “authors” and “public,” rather than of “writers” and “readers,” because it is evident that there were literary productions in advance, and probably very far in advance, of the discovery or evolution of written characters, and also that long after the use of script by authors, the greater portion of the public in all ancient lands received their literature, not through their eyes, but through their ears,--not by reading the text, but by listening to reciters, story-tellers, and “rhapsodists.”