n an average, a volume of "Caleb Williams" cost me four months,
neither less nor more.

It must be admitted, however, that during the whole period, bating a few
intervals, my mind was in a high state of excitement. I said to myself a
thousand times, "I will write a tale that shall constitute an epoch in
the mind of the reader, that no one, after he has read it, shall ever be
exactly the same man that he was before."--I put these things down just
as they happened, and with the most entire frankness. I know that it
will sound like the most pitiable degree of self-conceit. But such
perhaps ought to be the state of mind of an author when he does his
best. At any rate, I have said nothing of my vainglorious impulse for
nearly forty years.

When I had written about seven-tenths of the first volume, I was
prevailed upon by the extreme importunity of an old and intimate friend
to allow him the perusal of my manuscript. On the second day he returned
it with a note to this purpose: "I return you your manuscript, because I
promised to do so. If I had obeyed the impulse of my own mind, I should
have thrust it in the fire. If you persist, the book will infallibly
prove the grave of your literary fame."

I doubtless felt no implicit deference for the judgment of my friendly
critic. Yet it cost me at least two days of deep anxiety before I
recovered the shock. Let the reader picture to himself my situation. I
felt no implicit deference for the judgment of my friendly critic. But
it was all I had for it. This was my first experiment of an unbiassed
decision. It stood in the place of all the world to me. I could not, and
I did not feel disposed to, appeal any further. If I had, how could I
tell that the second and third judgment would be more favourable than
the first? Then what would have been the result? No; I had nothing for
it but to wrap myself in my own integrity. By dint of resolution I
became invulnerable. I resolved to go on to the end, trusting as I could
to my own anticipations of the whole, and bidding the world wait its
time before it should be admitted to the consult.

I began my narrative, as is the more usual way, in the third person. But
I speedily became dissatisfied. I then assumed the first person, making
the hero of my tale his own historian; and in this mode I have persisted
in all my subsequent attempts at works of fiction. It was infinitely the
best adapted, at least, to my vein of delineation, where the thing