EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION

THE AUTHOR TO THE READER

PART I. WRITING A POEM

II. SEEKING A PUBLISHER

III. THE END




PART I

WRITING A POEM


The book! The book! This day, Saturday, the sixth day of April, 1901, I
begin the book!

I have never kept a journal--I have been too busy living; but to-day I
begin a journal. I am so built that I can do but one thing at a time. Now
that I have begun The Captive, I must be haunted with it all day; when I
am not writing it I must be dreaming it, or restless because I am not.
Therefore it occurred to me that in the hours of weariness I would write
about it what was in my mind--what fears and what hopes; why and how I
write it will be a story in itself, and some day I think it will be read.