pen as the sole instrument for supplying my current expenses. By the
liberality of my bookseller, Mr. George Robinson, of Paternoster Row, I
was enabled then, and for nearly ten years before, to meet these
expenses, while writing different things of obscure note, the names of
which, though innocent and in some degree useful, I am rather inclined
to suppress. In May, 1791, I projected this, my favourite work, and from
that time gave up every other occupation that might interfere with it.
My agreement with Robinson was that he was to supply my wants at a
specified rate while the book was in the train of composition. Finally,
I was very little beforehand with the world on the day of its
publication, and was therefore obliged to look round and consider to
what species of industry I should next devote myself.

I had always felt in myself some vocation towards the composition of a
narrative of fictitious adventure; and among the things of obscure note
which I have above referred to were two or three pieces of this nature.
It is not therefore extraordinary that some project of the sort should
have suggested itself on the present occasion.

But I stood now in a very different situation from that in which I had
been placed at a former period. In past years, and even almost from
boyhood, I was perpetually prone to exclaim with Cowley:

"What shall I do to be for ever known,
And make the age to come my own?"

But I had endeavoured for ten years, and was as far from approaching my
object as ever. Everything I wrote fell dead-born from the press. Very
often I was disposed to quit the enterprise in despair. But still I felt
ever and anon impelled to repeat my effort.