Page:The Story of the House of Cassell (book).djvu/214

 some rather odd difficulties. Uniformity in the spelling of names was one; again, modern political controversies intruded themselves into early history. Welsh Disestablishment somehow got mixed up with the question of the primitive inhabitants of Wales; sharp divergences of views appeared as to the origin of the English and Germanic land systems; while of the religious history of the seventeenth century we despaired of getting an impartial account, so we got a Churchman and a Nonconformist to write, each from his own standpoint.

"After the book was published, the first volume was partly rewritten, as some sections of it proved to be more 'popular' and a good deal less accurate than the rest. Mr. Traill was consulted about all arrangements, and wrote the Introduction and some admirable sections on nineteenth-century literature, and I could not have wished for a better or pleasanter chief; but my connexion with Oxford enabled me to find most of the contributors, and the arrangement of the book and the details of the editing fell to my share.

"'Social England' was generally well received, and has, I have been told, proved decidedly valuable at Oxford and elsewhere, especially in suggesting new points of view and collecting information only available otherwise to those having access to large libraries. It is a history of conditions rather than of events and persons, and of society rather than politics.

"About 1898, after the book was completed, Messrs. Cassell decided to illustrate it, and asked me to superintend and re-edit the new issue. At the same time parts of it were revised or rewritten. For the first two and a half volumes we had expert aid, but later this became unnecessary. Every illustration was selected to emphasize some passage of the text—though occasionally a passage was added to give occasion for a very telling illustration—and fanciful illustrations were, very properly, rigorously ruled out by the Publishers. The wealth of material available surprised even experts, but I believe I have about three or four times as much in my old notebooks unused. Practically everyone asked was most helpful, and I do not recollect more than three or four refusals.

"When I began looking for illustrations. Sir E. Maunde Thompson significantly remarked to me that 'there were pitfalls.' There were; though we tumbled into some of them, we usually managed, with expert help, to scramble out before publication, and I cannot be too grateful to a number of people, especially the officials of the British Museum, and above all