Wild Western Scenes / A Narrative of Adventures in the Western Wilderness, Wherein the Exploits of Daniel Boone, the Great American Pioneer are Particularly Described

When a work of fiction has reached its fortieth edition, one would suppose the author might congratulate himself upon having contributed something of an imperishable character to the literature of the country. But no such pretensions are asserted for this production, now in its fortieth thousand. Being the first essay of an impetuous youth in a field where giants even have not always successfully contended, it would be a rash assumption to suppose it could receive from those who confer such honors any high award of merit. It has been before the public some fifteen years, and has never been reviewed. Perhaps the forbearance of those who wield the cerebral scalpels may not be further prolonged, and the book remains amenable to the judgment they may be pleased to pronounce.
To that portion of the public who have read with approbation so many thousands of his book, the author may speak with greater confidence. To this class of his friends he may make disclosures and confessions pertaining to the secret history of the “Wild Western Scenes,” without the hazard of incurring their displeasure.
Like the hero of his book, the author had his vicissitudes in boyhood, and committed such indiscretions as were incident to one of his years and circumstances, but nevertheless only such as might be readily pardoned by the charitable. Like Glenn, he submitted to a voluntary exile in the wilds of Missouri. Hence the description of scenery is a true picture, and several characters in the scenes were real persons. Many of the occurrences actually transpired in his presence, or had been enacted in the vicinity at no remote period; and the dream of the hero—his visit to the haunted island—was truly a dream of the author’s.
But the worst miseries of the author were felt when his work was completed; he could get no publisher to examine it. He then purchased an interest in a weekly newspaper, in the columns of which it appeared in consecutive chapters. The subscribers were pleased with it, and desired to possess it in a volume; but still no publisher would undertake it,—the author had no reputation in the literary world. He offered it for fifty dollars, but could find no purchaser at any price. Believing the British booksellers more accommodating, a friend was employed to make a fair copy in manuscript, at a certain number of cents per hundred words. The work was sent to a British publisher, with whom it remained many months, but was returned, accompanied by a note declining to treat for it.