The Project Gutenberg EBook of My Aunt Margaret's Mirror, by Sir Walter Scott

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: My Aunt Margaret's Mirror
From Short Stories Published in "The Keepsake Annual" of 1828

Author: Sir Walter Scott

Posting Date: October 23, 2008 [EBook #1667]
Release Date: March, 1999

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY AUNT MARGARET'S MIRROR ***

Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer

MY AUNT MARGARET'S MIRROR

by Sir Walter Scott

From Short Stories Published in "The Keepsake Annual" of 1828

INTRODUCTION.

The species of publication which has come to be generally known by the
title of ANNUAL, being a miscellany of prose and verse, equipped with
numerous engravings, and put forth every year about Christmas, had
flourished for a long while in Germany before it was imitated in this
country by an enterprising bookseller, a German by birth, Mr. Ackermann.
The rapid success of his work, as is the custom of the time, gave
birth to a host of rivals, and, among others, to an Annual styled The
Keepsake, the first volume of which appeared in 1828, and attracted much
notice, chiefly in consequence of the very uncommon splendour of
its illustrative accompaniments. The expenditure which the spirited
proprietors lavished on this magnificent volume is understood to have
been not less than from ten to twelve thousand pounds sterling!

Various gentlemen of such literary reputation that any one might
think it an honour to be associated with them had been announced as
contributors to this Annual, before application was made to me to assist
in it; and I accordingly placed with much pleasure at the Editor's
disposal a few fragments, originally designed to have been worked
into the Chronicles of the Canongate, besides a manuscript drama, the
long-neglected performance of my youthful days--"The House of Aspen."

The Keepsake for 1828 included, however, only three of these little
prose tales, of which the first in order was that entitled "My Aunt
Margaret's Mirror." By way of INTRODUCTION to this, when now included in
a general collection of my lucubrations, I have only to say that it is a
mere transcript