Excerpt from The Ghosts of Piccadilly When prefaces are read at all they are read most often after the rest of the book. And nearly always, I imagine, they are written after it. But I am writing this before a line else of my book is done, and on this ground I venture to approach the courteous reader with the hope that he also, if this beginning should catch his eye, Will be unusual and read the preface before the book. I wish to place before myself, as well as before him, precisely, more or less, What I shall try to accomplish. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.