Preface
The favor with which a few articles in the periodical press, similar to those herewith presented, have been received induces the hope that the present volume may prove acceptable. If some popular literary shrines which are inevitably included in the writer’s personal itinerary are herein accorded but scant notice, it is for the reason that they have been already so oft described that portrayal of them is therefore purposely omitted from this account of a literary pilgrimage: even Stratford-on-Avon here for once escapes description. However, the initial paragraphs of these chapters lightly outline a series of literary rambles which the writer has found measurably complete and consecutive. The pilgrim is understood to make his start from London.
If these notes of his sojourns in the scenes hallowed by the presence of British authors or embalmed in their books shall prove pleasantly reminiscent to some who have fared to the same shrines, or helpfully suggestive to others who contemplate such pilgrimage, then
“not in vain
He wore his sandal shoon and scallop-shell.”
The writer is indebted to the publishers of the Home Journal for permission to reproduce one or two articles which have appeared in that periodical.
T. F. W.