She writes early in January, 1852, of her _Recollections of a Literary Life_: “My book is out at last, hurried through the press in a fortnight—a process which half killed me and has left the volumes no doubt full of errata,—and you, I mean your House, have not got it. I am keeping a copy for you personally. People say that they like it. I think you will, because it will remind you of this pretty country and of an old Englishwoman who loves you well.” And later on she writes to Mr. Fields: “Thank you for telling me about the kind American reception of my book.... I do assure you that to be heartily greeted by my kinsmen across the Atlantic is very precious to me.” Miss Mitford writes to her friend Mrs. Hoare on the subject of Jane Austen’s works: “Your admiration of Jane Austen is so far from being a ‘heresy,’ that I never met any high literary people in my life who did not prefer her to any female prose writer.... For my own part I delight in her.” And again writing of truth in works of fiction she says: “The greatest fictions of the world are the truest. Look at the _Vicar of Wakefield_, look at the _Simple Story_, look at Scott, look at Jane Austen, greater because truer than all.” In the same letter she remarks:— “Yes, I ought to have liked Shelley better. But I have a love of clearness—a perfect hatred of all that is vague and obscure—and I still think with the grand exception of the ‘Cenci’ and of a few shorter poems, that there was rather the making of a great poet, if he had been spared, than the actual accomplishment of any great work. It was an immense promise.” “If you have command of French books,” she writes to another friend, “read Saint Beuve’s _Causeries du Lundi_—charming volumes, full of variety and attractive in every way.” During the late autumn of 1852 Miss Mitford was busy writing an Introduction to a complete edition of her _Dramatic Works_ which her publishers were preparing to bring out. À propos of this undertaking she writes: “For my own part I am convinced that without pains there will be no really good writing.... I am still so difficult to satisfy that I have written a long preface to the _Dramatic Works_ three times over, many parts far more than three times.” This Introduction forms very interesting reading, giving as it does an account of her own experiences, together with many shrewd and clever remarks and criticisms. We have quoted several passages in our chapters upon the production of the plays. The work was dedicated to Mr. Bennock, a warm friend and a patron of Art and Letters, who had first suggested the idea to the author of gathering together all her plays in this way and editing them.