The American Copyright Act, during its nine years' life, has been of the greatest benefit to American fiction, if not to American literature in general. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that America drew her chief supplies of fiction from England up to the year '91, because the earlier school of American writers, however distinguished, had a comparatively limited circle of readers, and could not be considered to counterbalance the enormous vogue of English writers. The Act changed little at first, and English books continued to have the greatest popularity, but this popularity was soon encroached upon by the rivalry of indigenous fiction. To-day there are in America, American authors whose books have circulations compared to which even those of the most popular modern English authors are as nothing. Several books have recently attained to circulations of upwards of a quarter of a million copies, and new authors of merit are eagerly welcomed, not only from the East but also from the West, from big centres, and from quieter and remoter places; giving actual proofs of America's new and remarkable literary activity. More striking than the greatest of these successes--for popular successes are frequently scored by mediocre talents--is the fact that a school of young American writers is pressing for recognition, gifted with the sense of form, and not wanting either in pathos or in humour--real delineators of life and character. And what an inexhaustible field lies ready for them, to depict--if they will only depict justly--the actual life of America, of the most variedly composite and interesting people the modern world knows! Inspired possibly at first by several exceptional men who stood on the threshold of this new literary development, there is now growing up a school of writers of talent to whom respect cannot be denied and whom we can no longer afford to ignore in England. =The Dollar Library= will give to English readers a representative selection of the best American fiction of the day, and also a few of the best works of two writers who are, perhaps, more than any others, responsible for this new development, for, although both HAROLD FREDERIC and STEPHEN CRANE have in these brief nine years departed from among us, no series representative of American fiction of to-day would be thought complete without them. For the rest The Dollar Library will devote itself mainly to the introduction of hitherto unknown authors, and it appeals to readers particularly as a pioneer. It will afford an opportunity to English readers of gaining an impression of the mercurial genius picturesquely expressing itself on the other side of the Atlantic, of appreciating a new graft on the tree of English Literature, which, transplanted to another clime, bids fair to yield yet another rich and luxuriant growth. * * * * * LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN [Illustration]