_David Belasco, however, is the most conspicuous figure in the contemporary Theatre: his career has been long, picturesque, adventurous, and brilliant: “the present eye praises the present object,” and it was deemed certain that an authentic_ LIFE _of that singular, romantic person would prove remunerative as well as interesting, instructive, and valuable. In September, 1913, accordingly,--soon after Mr. Winter’s_ THE WALLET OF TIME _had been brought out,--I was, as his agent, easily able to make for him very advantageous arrangements for the publication of such a work,--first to be passed through a prominent magazine, as a serial, and then to be issued in book form. Mr. Winter was much pleased and encouraged by this arrangement, and he had begun to gather and shape material for_ THE LIFE OF DAVID BELASCO _when announcement was made that Mr. Belasco was writing and would presently publish, in_ HEARST’S MAGAZINE, _an_ AUTOBIOGRAPHY. _My father had met with a similar experience in 1893, when Jefferson’s_ AUTOBIOGRAPHY, _published as a serial in_ THE CENTURY, _forestalled his authoritative LIFE of that great actor, rendering it, monetarily, almost profitless, and, therefore, he deemed it wise to lay aside this book._ _Belasco’s_ THE STORY OF MY LIFE _was published_ _in_ HEARST’S MAGAZINE, _March, 1914, to December, 1915,--but, though it preëmpted the magazine field and made a work therein by my father impossible, it proved wholly inadequate and unreliable as a biography. In September, 1916, however,--soon after_ SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE--THIRD SERIES _had been published,--Mr. Winter decided that the time was propitious for him to take up again the present Memoir, and, his publishers agreeing with him, he engaged to do so. He was then ill and weak; but he earnestly desired to work till the last, to be always doing, to overcome every obstacle by the force of his indomitable will, and, whatever he might suffer, never to yield or break under the pressure of adverse circumstance or the burden of age._ _About the end of October, 1916, accordingly, he began the actual writing of this Memoir, and, although repeatedly urged by me to desist, he continued in it almost to the last day of his life. “I might better be dead,” he once exclaimed, “than to sit idle! I must go on: I must work at something: if it were not at this, it would be at something else. Moreover, I will not be beaten by anything: I will make this book the best thing of the kind I have ever yet done.”_