DO YOU READ THE PREFACE？

When you open a new book，which part do you read first？ I read the preface first — that is，after glancing at the title-page. I read the preface very carefully and as a rule more than once.

But several people tell me that they do not read prefaces，and I have seen it given in the short preface to a certain book in justification of its shortness that readers do not usually read prefaces. I have yet to seek a man or a woman who has read through the preface to Webster’s New International Dictionary or even that to The Concise Oxford Dictionary.

If you do not happen to have the habit of reading the preface，I would advise you to read it. The preface to a book states its purpose，subject，scope, etc. The reading of it will show you what you may expect in the book and whether it is the kind of book you need, and will thus ensure a more intelligent and more respectful perusal or save much time that might otherwise be wasted on it.

By the way，the reading of the preface may reveal the fact that the book is written by a person who has but a poor knowledge of the subject’ he professes to deal with, so that it is not worth reading at all. I have lately come across a handbook of English grammar and rhetoric the very first sentence of whose preface contains a grammatical mistake and reads more like a Chinese sentence than an English one, and also an English translation of a Chinese novel whose preface forms a good example of bad spelling，bad grammar，and bad usage.