It is now four years since this book first appeared before the public,
and I feel it my duty not to let a second edition go forth into the world
without a few words of accompaniment. It hardly seems necessary to
assure my readers that I have endeavored to earn for the following pages
the title of a "corrected edition." An author is the father of his book,
and what father could see his child preparing to set out on a new and
dangerous road, even if it were not for the first time, without
endeavoring to supply him with every good that it lay in his power to
bestow, and to free him from every fault or infirmity on which the world
could look unfavorably? The assurance therefore that I have repeatedly
bestowed the greatest possible care on the correction of my Egyptian
Princess seems to me superfluous, but at the same time I think it
advisable to mention briefly where and in what manner I have found it
necessary to make these emendations. The notes have been revised,
altered, and enriched with all those results of antiquarian research
(more especially in reference to the language and monuments of ancient
Egypt) which have come to our knowledge since the year 1864, and which
my limited space allowed me to lay before a general public. On the
alteration of the text itself I entered with caution, almost with
timidity; for during four years of constant effort as academical tutor,
investigator and writer in those severe regions of study which exclude
the free exercise of imagination, the poetical side of a man's nature may
forfeit much to the critical; and thus, by attempting to remodel my tale
entirely, I might have incurred the danger of removing it from the more
genial sphere of literary work to which it properly belongs. I have
therefore contented myself with a careful revision of the style, the
omission of lengthy passages which might have diminished the interest of
the story to general readers, the insertion of a few characteristic or
explanatory additions, and the alteration of the proper names. These