Page:Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson, Hitherto unpublished, 1921.djvu/21

 of the manuscripts without great expense and inconvenience.

From events that have transpired since the publication in 1916 of the two-volume Bibliophile edition of Stevenson's unpublished poems, we are led to believe that the literary importance of the manuscripts was not appreciated by the Stevenson heirs. It is neither necesssary nor advisable to comment or speculate further upon the circumstances which led to the sale of the manuscripts before being published; whatever they may have been, they are of far less importance to the public than the established fact that the manuscripts were dispersed before being transcribed or published, and the further fact that they ultimately came into the possession of an owner who now permits them to be printed.

If it be regrettable that the distribution of the present edition, in which there is destined to be a world-wide interest, is confined to the relatively limited membership of a book club, the circumstances are made inevitable by certain fundamental rules, without which no cohesive body of booklovers can long exist. And these restrictive measures are not [ 15 ]