The reviews varied from the flaccid indifferent to the ferocious. No other book of mine ever had such a bad press, or anything like such a bad press. Why respectable and dignified organs should have been moved to fury by the publication of a work whose veracity cannot be impugned, I have never been quite able to understand; for I attacked no financial interests; I did not attack any interest; I merely destroyed a few illusions and make-believes. Yet such organs as "The Athenaeum" and "Blackwood's" dragged forward their heaviest artillery against the anonymous author. In its most virulent days "Blackwood's" could scarcely have been more murderous. Its remarks upon me will bear comparison even with its notorious attack, by the same well-known hand, on Mr. Bernard Shaw. I had, of course, ample opportunities for adjusting the balance between myself and the well-known hand, which opportunities I did not entirely neglect. Also I was convinced that the time had arrived for avowing the authorship, and I immediately included the book in the official list of my publications. Till then the dark secret had only once been divulged in the press--by Sir W. Robertson Nicoll. But this journalist, whose interest in the literary life is probably unsurpassed, refrained from any criticism. I have purposely forgotten the number of copies sold. It was the smallest in my experience of infinitesimal numbers. In due season the publishers--to my regret, and conceivably now to theirs--'remaindered' the poor red-and-green volume. And The Times Book Club, having apparently become possessed of a large stock of the work, offered it, with my name but without my authority, at a really low price. I think the first bargain was fivepence, but later sixpence was demanded. As The Times Book Club steadily continued to advertise the book, I suppose that at sixpence it must have had quite a vogue. At any rate it has been quoted from with more freedom than any other book of mine, and has indeed obviously formed the basis of dozens of articles--especially in the United States--of which the writers have omitted to offer me any share in their remuneration. I have myself bought copies of it at as high as a shilling a piece, as a speculation. And now here, after about a dozen years, is a new edition, reproducing word for word the original text in all its ingenuous self-complacency. I