of _The Purple Land That England Lost_. A purple land may be found
in almost any region of the globe, and 'tis of our gains, not our
losses, we keep count. A few notices of the book appeared in the papers,
one or two of the more serious literary journals reviewing it (not
favourably) under the heading of "Travels and Geography"; but the
reading public cared not to buy, and it very shortly fell into oblivion.
There it might have remained for a further period of nineteen years,
or for ever, since the sleep of a book is apt to be of the unawakening
kind, had not certain men of letters, who found it on a forgotten heap
and liked it in spite of its faults, or because of them, concerned
themselves to revive it.

We are often told that an author never wholly loses his affection for
a first book, and the feeling has been likened (more than once) to
that of a parent towards a first-born. I have not said it, but in
consenting to this reprint I considered that a writer's early or
unregarded work is apt to be raked up when he is not standing by to
make remarks. He may be absent on a journey from which he is not
expected to return. It accordingly seemed better that I should myself
supervise a new edition, since this would enable me to remove a few
of the numerous spots and pimples which decorate the ingenious
countenance of the work before handing it on to posterity.

Besides many small verbal corrections and changes, the deletion of
some paragraphs and the insertion of a few new ones, I have omitted
one entire chapter containing the Story of a Piebald Horse, recently
reprinted in another book entitled _El Ombu_. I have also dropped
the tedious introduction to the former edition, only preserving, as
an appendix, the historical part, for the sake of such of my readers
as may like to have a few facts about the land that England lost.