From SHORT STORIES PUBLISHED IN "THE KEEPSAKE" ANNUAL of 1828




My Aunt Margaret's Mirror

by Sir Walter Scott




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