Excerpt from The Innocents Abroad
So far as I remember, I have never seen an Author"s Preface which had any purpose but one - to furnish reasons for the publication of the book. Prefaces wear many disguises, call themselves by various names, and pretend to come on various businesses, but I think that upon examination we are quite sure to find that their errand is always the same: they are there to apologize for the book; in other words, furnish reasons for its publication. This often insures brevity.
Upon these terms, if there is nothing to explain or nothing worth the explanation, there is no occasion for a Preface; there is nothing for it to do - except to explain its own presence, apologize for its intrusion. That is what this present Preface does.
When the books in this collection appeared in print originally, most of them had Prefaces which furnished reasons for publication. Those Introductions will be found in their places, and need not be repeated here. The jurisdiction of the present Preface is restricted to furnishing reasons for the publication of the Collection as a whole. This is not easy to do.
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