Also in The Seats of the Mighty, Doltaire, the half-villain, overshadows
the good English hero from first to last; and yet, despite the
unconscious partiality for the individual in both books, English
character and the English as a race, as a whole, are dominant in the
narrative.

There is a long letter, as a dedication to this book, addressed to my
father; there is a note also, which explains the spirit in which the book
was written, and I have no desire to enlarge this introduction in the
presence of these prefaces to the first edition. But I may say that this
book was gravely important to me, because it was to test all my capacity
for writing a novel with an historical background, and, as it were, in
the custom of a bygone time. It was not really the first attempt at
handling a theme belonging to past generations, because I had written for
Good Words, about the year 1890, a short novel which I called The Chief
Factor, a tale of the Hudson's Bay Company. It was the first novel or
tale of mine which secured copyright under the new American copyright act
of 1892.

There was a circumstance connected with this publication which is
interesting. When I arrived in New York, I had only three days in which
to have the book printed in order to secure the copyright before Good
Words published the novel as its Christmas annual in its entirety. I
tried Messrs. Harper & Brothers, and several other publishers by turn,
but none of them could undertake to print the book in the time. At last
some kind friend told me to go to the Trow Directory Binding Company,
which I did. They said they could not print the story in the time.
I begged them to reconsider. I told them how much was at stake for me.
I said that I would stay in the office and read the proofs as they came
from the press, and would not move until it was finished. Refusal had