This work is intended to be a scholarly presentation. Footnotes are one of the outward manifestations of such an effort and exist to serve certain well-defined purposes. Theoretically, every sentence or paragraph of a work not derived from an author's direct experience ought to be accompanied by one or more footnotes indicating source or authority. Unfortunately, the trappings of scholarship can be overdone. One result may be a veritable meadow of footnotes intersected by a thin trickle of text - a device which serves only to irritate and distract the reader. At the risk of requiring a great act of faith on the part of said reader, sources that seem obvious from context or common sense have been omitted or explained in blanket footnotes. The interests of continuity, simplicity, and economy (of both verbiage and what the nineteenth century was wont to call "pecuniary expenditure") seem to be best served in this fashion. Secondary works which have proved helpful in compiling or interpreting the narrative, or matters which have seemed especially worth calling to the attention of the reader or requiring citation by their very nature, have been indicated in the usual way. The writer, whenever he has interjected his own judgments or introduced material which he has felt needed authority to back it up, has done his best to make this clear.

The reader who wishes further information is assured that a fully documented draft of this work reposes in the University Archives and is available to shed light on the dark and dusty corners from which this material was gathered. A Bibliographical Note at the end of the work gives detailed information about the principal sources from which this account has been drawn.

R. E. M.