I am agreeably called upon by my bookseller to prepare for a Second
Edition of "Willy Reilly." This is at all times a pleasing call upon an
author; and it is so especially to me, inasmuch as the first Edition
was sold at the fashionable, but unreasonable, price of a guinea and a
half--a price which, in this age of cheap literature, is almost fatal to
the sale of any three-volume novel, no matter what may be its merits.
With respect to "Willy Reilly," it may be necessary to say that I never
wrote any work of the same extent in so short a time, or with so much
haste. Its popularity, however, has been equal to that of any other
of my productions; and the reception which it has experienced from the
ablest public and professional critics of the day has far surpassed my
expectations. I accordingly take this opportunity of thanking them most
sincerely for the favorable verdict which they have generously passed
upon it, as I do for their kindness to my humble efforts for the last
twenty-eight years. Nothing, indeed, can be a greater encouragement to
a literary man, to a novel writer, in fact, than the reflection that he
has an honest and generous tribunal to encounter. If he be a quack or an
impostor, they will at once detect him; but if he exhibit human nature
and truthful character in his pages, it matters not whether he goes to
his bookseller's in a coach, or plods there humbly, and on foot; they
will forget everything but the value and merit of what he places before
them. On this account it is that I reverence and respect them; and
indeed I ought to do so, for I owe them the gratitude of a pretty long
literary life.

Concerning this Edition, I must say something. I have already stated
that it was written rapidly and in a hurry. On reading it over for
correction, I was struck in my cooler moments by many defects in it,
which were, kindly overlooked, or, perhaps, not noticed at all. To