 | The village inn, or, The adventure of Bellechassaigne |  |
CAUTION.
“The Trade and the Public are respectfully informed, that an ABRIDGED
or MUTILATED Edition of Alison's History of Europe is about to appear
from another press, as we have understood, in which MORE THAN HALF of the
original work, as prepared by the author, will be omitted! Those, therefore,
desiring a PERFECT copy of Mr. Alison's splendid production, must be careful
to order one of Harpers' edition.”
The foregoing appears on the cover of certain late pamphlets
issued by Harper and Brothers. We are much obliged to these
gentlemen for so gratuitous and useful an announcement, just at
the time when we were ready to make it ourselves. But nothing
can be more unkind than the calling of the “Abridgement” of
Alison's long, tedious, und (to the larger class,) unreadable history,
a Mutilated Edition. It is not mutilated, but exactly what
it purports to be, abrided. We never intended to call it anything
but what it is—viz: a carefully digested and skillfully prepared
condensation of a work, which, from its great length, is almost
sealed to the general reader, and unavailable to colleges and
other seminaries of learning, for whose especial use and benefit
our edition is intended. We are quite willing to submit it, and
shall submit it to some of the most eminent men of learning in
the United States; and, if they are not disposed to recommend it
in the warmest terms, we are willing that the book shall remain
as unsaleable as our Christian friends, Harper and Brothers, wish
to make it by their preliminary advertisement.
We need not say to those who have read Harpers' edition of
Alison, that it abounds with gross errors. These are for the most
part, copied literatim et verbatim from the English edition, which
is sown thick with them. They are of such a character as not
only to impair the value of the work, but to render it, as a standard,
in which minute accuracy is indispensable, almost worthless.
In our abridged edition, every mistake even of the most trivial
sort is corrected, and Mr. Alison is set right, not only with regard
to the geography of places, but with regard to historical facts,
which he has sometimes in the strangest manner perverted from
their notorious bearing and character. Take, for example, his
ignorant and prejudiced account of our war with Great Britain
Shall this be allowed to go abroad among the youth of America
to damp their patriotism and chill their ardor?
We cannot, in so hurried an article, set forth all that we are
ready to say on this subject, but we shall take future opportunities
to do so. Let us be content at this time to refer to the lying
spirit of the “Caution” above quoted. How do the utterers know,
that our edition is a mutilated one? How do they know that more
than half of the oriinal is omitted? They can know nothing of
the kind. Nobody has read a page of the book, except the author,
the proof-reader and the editor of this Journal. Has their
informant read it? No! The foregoing assertions then are simple
falsehoods, with which we now, in the face of the public,
charge Harper and Brothers with having maliciously promulgated
As to what our forthcoming book is, we have truthfully told in
what we have already written. It but remains for us to announce
the highly-respectable name of the gentleman by whom this
Abridgement has been, with singular industry, tact and talent,
prepared. Our readers and the readers of many other popular
periodicals, need no guaranty for the excellence of any work
by Edward S. Gould.
The book will appear during the first part of October next. It
is stereotyped on a perfectly new, large and elegant letter, will be
printed on superior white paper, and be an elegant royal octavo
volume of FIVE HUNDRED AND TWELVE PAGES. It will be submitted
on publication to the Hon. Roger Minot Sherman of Connecticut,
to Chancellor Kent, to the Hon. John C. Spencer, to ex-President
Duer of Columbia College, to President Quincy of Harvard
University, to President Day of Yale University, to Chancellor
Frelinghuysen, to Dr Anthon, author of the Classical Dictionary,
and to several other gentlemen of learning and high
character.
The intelligent reader need not be informed that it has always
been usual to issue Abridgements of very long and valuable histories;
and that these abridgements, from their better adaptation
to the mass, have often taken the place of the original works. In
Harper's Family Library are found volumes of this kind.
We beg leave to assure our friends and the public, who ought
to be our friends, that the book, we shall give them, will be highly
creditable both to editor and publisher; and that it will contain
every fact and incident detailed by Alison, in as full, circumstantial
and clear a manner as is necessary for the full satisfaction of
the reader, whether he be old or young, learned or ignorant.
| The village inn, or, The adventure of Bellechassaigne | |