ABSTRACT
The manuscript is in the Houghton Library as bMS Eng 1009 (61), and consists of two sheets of white paper, each previously folded once to form a pair of geminate leaves, written on rectos only (now unfolded and held as single sheets: the folio numbering used here reflects the present state of the MS as two flat sheets). It is the working manuscript of the ‘Prefatory Note’ which appeared in SGG XII, to which (except for the change of title) it corresponds so fully that it may well have been used for typesetting. Nonetheless it contains enough evidence of De Quincey’s process of composition on such an important subject to be worth presenting in transcription.
