Chapter I: Act III: , Scene i

These suggestions were undertaken in the hope that they would not prove to be a work of supererogation. In some instances these anticipations, in the nature of things, will be disappointed. There are authors whose care and precision, in the preparation of their manuscripts, and the reading of their proofs, may put to shame the work of editors and printers. As help to such as these, the book is not intended. It is merely hoped that it may interest them, and that they, perhaps, will see how it might have been made better.

The art of printing is so largely a mechanical art, with fixed restrictions as to what can and what can not be done within a given space of type, that even the experienced writer will sometimes find himself confronted with results that had not occurred to him as possible. Perhaps there never yet was made a book in which authors’ errors did not exist, as, indeed, it is probable that there never existed one which was absolutely correct as to its type. Eternal vigilance is as clearly the price of correct book-making as of liberty. For these reasons the experienced author may be able to appreciate the motives which have prompted these hints.

To authors who are strangers to the details of type-setting and “make-up,” perhaps no apology for the intrusion will be necessary. It comes constantly within the experience of publishers to be asked for information about these matters, and while it is a pleasure always to give it, a brief conversation or a few letters often fail, on the one hand to make the point clear, and on the other to cover the necessary ground.

Within these pages an attempt has been made to set forth the essential points briefly and yet with some comprehensiveness. The experience of many years and of many persons has been drawn upon and recognized authorities have been consulted. Those who have had a share in the compilation understand how important these points are--how common it is for the experienced author to neglect them, and how they themselves are seldom wholly guiltless of infractions of the rules.

F. W. H.

II

OF THE MANUSCRIPT

“I writ at random, very doubtfully.”
_Two Gentlemen of Verona._