ight was completed, I happened to mention the
incident to Mr. Archibald Clavering Gunter, author of Mr. Barnes of New
York, who had a publishing house for his own books. He immediately
made me an offer for The Chief Factor. I hesitated, because I had been
dealing with great firms like Harpers, and, to my youthful mind, it
seemed rather beneath my dignity to have the imprint of so new a firm
as the Home Publishing Company on the title-page of my book. I asked the
advice of Mr. Walter H. Page, then editor of The Forum, now one of the
proprietors of The World's Work and Country Life, and he instantly said:
"What difference does it make who publishes your book? It is the public
you want."

I did not hesitate any longer. The Chief Factor went to Mr. Archibald
Clavering Gunter and the Home Publishing Company, and they made a very
large sale of it. I never cared for the book however; it seemed
stilted and amateurish, though some of its descriptions and some of its
dialogues were, I think, as good as I can do; so, eventually, in the
middle nineties, I asked Mr. Gunter to sell me back the rights in the
book and give me control of it. This he did. I thereupon withdrew it
from publication at once, and am not including it in this subscription
edition. I think it better dead. But the writing of it taught me better
how to write The Trail of the Sword; though, if I had to do this book
again, I could construct it better.

I think it fresh and very vigorous, and I think it does not lack
distinction, while a real air of romance--of refined romance--pervades
it. But I know that Mr. W. E. Henley was right when, after most
generously helping me to revise it, with a true literary touch
wonderfully intimate and affectionate, he said to me: "It is just not
quite big, but the next one will get home."

He was right. The Trail of the Sword is "just not quite," though I think
it has charm; but it remained for The Seats of the Mighty to get home,
as "W. E. H.", the most exacting, yet the most generous, of critics,
said.

This book played a most important part in a development of my literary
work, and the warm reception by the public--for in England it has
been through its tenth edition, and in America through proportionate
thousands--was partly made possible by the very beautiful illustrations
which accompanied its publication in The Illustrated London News.
The artist was A. L. Forestier, and never before or since has my work
received such di