in a year,
all very good reading. The rate of production diminished in the last
ten or fifteen years of his life, but the quality never failed.

He published over ninety books under his own name, and a few books for
very young children under the pseudonym "Comus".

For today's taste his books are perhaps a little too religious, and what
we would nowadays call "pi". In part that was the way people wrote in
those days, but more important was the fact that in his days at the Red
River Settlement, in the wilds of Canada, he had been a little
dissolute, and he did not want his young readers to be unmindful of how
they ought to behave, as he felt he had been.

Some of his books were quite short, little over 100 pages. These books
formed a series intended for the children of poorer parents, having less
pocket-money. These books are particularly well-written and researched,
because he wanted that readership to get the very best possible for
their money. They were published as six series, three books in each
series.

In this book of personal reminiscences, the author, hearing in the
distance the Grim Reaper, is at his most pi. The first few chapters
describe the effort he had to make to gain the background information he
needed to write the books, but suddenly he tells us that he doesn't feel
at all well, that his time may well be near, and he fills out the book
with half-a- dozen short stories, all very moralist, but still well up
to his usual quality of output.

Re-created as an e-Text by Nick Hodson, August 2003.

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PERSONAL REMINISCENCES OF BOOK MAKING, BY R.M. BALLANTYNE.

CHAPTER ONE.

INCIDENTS IN BOOK MAKING--INTRODUCTORY.

Book making is mixed up, more or less, with difficulties. It is
sometimes disappointing; often amusing; occasionally lucrative;
frequently expensive, and always interesting--at least to the maker.

Of course I do not refer to that sort of book making which is connected
with the too prevalent and disgraceful practice of gambling, but to the
making of literary books--especially story-books for the young.

For over eight-and-thirty years I have had the pleasure of making such
books and of gathering the material for them in many and distant lands.

During that period a considerable number of the juvenile public have
accepted me as one of their guides in the world of Fiction, and through
many scenes in the wi