Book Description:
Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: of the Old Road from Melrose, near the top of the hill on which Selkirk stands, and distant about half a mile from that town. If this letter fixes the date of revisal of the autobiography, we may regret that Sir Walter did not finish the work, which would have been more valuable, in all senses, than his later novels. But, as he was not disposed to publish his memoirs during his lifetime, and was most anxious to wipe off his debts and be his own man, he abandoned the task, in favour of works fitted for immediate publication. Andrew Lang. July 1894. chapter Section 4INTRODUCTION CHEOXICLES OF THE CANONGATE. The preceding volume of this Collection l concluded the last of the pieces originally published under the nominis umbra of The Author of Waverley ; and the circumstances which rendered it impossible for the writer to continue longer in the possession of his incognito were communicated in 1827, in the Introduction to the first series of Chronicles of the Canongate consisting (besides a biographical sketch of the imaginary chronicler) of three tales, entitled 'The Highland Widow,' 'The Two Drovers,' and 'The Surgeon's Daughter.' In the present volume the two first named of these pieces are included, together with three detached stories, which appeared the year after in the elegant compilation called 'The Keepsake.' 'The Surgeon's Daughter,' it is thought better to defer until a succeeding volume,2 than to Begin and break off in the middle. I have, perhaps, said enough on former occasions of the misfortunes which led to the dropping of that mask under which I had, for a long series of years, enjoyed so large a portion of public favour. Through the success of those literary efforts I had been enabled to indulgemost of the tastes which a retired person of my s...
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