It would be false modesty in me to say that its acceptance, when published, did not nearly come up to everything that could soberly have been expected by me.

In consequence of this, the tone of my mind, both during the period in which I was engaged in the work and afterwards, acquired a certain elevation, and made me now unwilling to stoop to what was insignificant.
I formed a conception of a book of fictitious adventure that should in some way be distinguished by a very powerful interest.

Pursuing this idea, I invented first the third volume of my tale, then the second, and last of all the first.

I bent myself to the conception of a series of adventures of flight and pursuit; the fugitive in perpetual apprehension of being overwhelmed with the worst calamities, and the pursuer, by his ingenuity and resources, keeping his victim in a state of the most fearful alarm.

This was the project of my third volume.