Excerpt from Introductions, and Notes and Illustrations, to the Novels, Tales, and Romances, of the Author of Waverley, Vol. 1: Waverley-Heart of Midlothian I must refer to a very early period of my life, were I to point out my first achievements as a tale-teller - but I believe some of my old school fellows can still bear witness that I had a distin, guished character for that talent, at a time when the applause of my companions was my recom pense for the disgraces and punishments which the future romance-writer incurred for being idle himself, and keeping others idle, during hours that should have been employed on our tasks. The chief enjoyment of my holydays was to escape with a chosen friend, who had the same taste with myself, and alternately to recite to each other such wild adventures as we. 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.