_When the Sleeper Wakes_, whose title I have now altered to _The Sleeper Awakes_, was first published as a book in 1899 after a serial appearance in the _Graphic_ and one or two American and colonial periodicals.

It is one of the most ambitious and least satisfactory of my books, and I have taken the opportunity afforded by this reprinting to make a number of excisions and alterations.

Like most of my earlier work, it was written under considerable pressure; there are marks of haste not only in the writing of the latter part, but in the very construction of the story.
Except for certain streaks of a slovenliness which seems to be an almost unavoidable defect in me, there is little to be ashamed of in the writing of the opening portion; but it will be fairly manifest to the critic that instead of being put aside and thought over through a leisurely interlude, the ill-conceived latter part was pushed to its end.

I was at that time overworked, and badly in need of a holiday.

In addition to various necessary journalistic tasks, I had in hand another book, _Love and Mr.Lewisham_, which had taken a very much stronger hold upon my affections than this present story.