: John Bull Junior; or French as She is Traduced by O Rell Max Eggleston George Cary Author Of Introduction Etc - French language Study and teaching

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John Bull, Junior

MAX O'RELL

John Bull, Junior

FRENCH AS SHE IS TRADUCED

WITH A PREFACE BY GEORGE C. EGGLESTON

CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED 104 & 106 FOURTH AVENUE, NEW YORK

PREFACE

It must be that a too free association with American men of letters has moved the author of this book to add to his fine Gallic wit a touch of that preposterousness which is supposed to be characteristic of American humor.

For proof of this, I cite the fact that he has asked me to introduce him upon this occasion. Surely there could be no more grotesque idea than that any word of mine can serve to make Max O'Rell better known than he is to the great company of American readers.

Have not the pirate publishers already introduced him to all Americans who care for literature? Have not their translators done their best, not only to bring his writings to the attention of readers, but also to add to the sparkle and vivacity of his books by translating into them many things not to be found in the French originals? These generous folk, who have thus liberally supplemented his wit with flashes of their own stupidity, have treated his text after the manner of a celebrated Kentuckian of whom it was written that his love of truth was so great that he gave his entire time and attention to the task of ornamenting and adding to it.

But with all their eagerness to render interested service to a distinguished man of letters who was not then here to look after his own affairs, the pirates missed this, the best of his books; and finding that no surreptitious edition of it has appeared in this country, the author has felt himself privileged to re-write it and make such changes in it and additions to it as his own judgment has suggested without the prompting of voluntary assistants, and even to negotiate with a publisher for the issue of an edition on his own account.

With a tremor of apprehension, we reflect that Max O'Rell's period of observation among ourselves will presently end, and that when he comes to record the result in his peculiar fashion, we are likely to echo that school-boy's plaint. But at any rate we shall know our own features better after we have contemplated them in his mirror; and, meantime, those of us who have enjoyed his acquaintance are disposed earnestly to hope that a guest whom we have learned to esteem so warmly may not think quite so ill of the American character as the barbaric condition of our laws respecting literary property would warrant.

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