The assistance of Penny Clarke and her colleagues at Edinburgh University
Press in guiding this study to publication is something for which I am
particularly grateful. I am also obliged to three anonymous publishers' readers,
whose constructive criticism and helpful suggestions have made this work more,
I think, than it would otherwise have been.

Finally I should confess that I was fortunate in securing the material support
of several academic bodies. The British Academy initially made my doctoral
research possible. An External Research Studentship awarded by the Master
and Fellows of Emmanuel College, Cambridge made it much more comfortable.
At the last the gainful employment and academic services provided by the
University of Lancaster made the completion of this study less onerous than it
might otherwise have been. This is, of course, fitting, for in the absence of such
generous and unquestioning support it could not even have been begun.

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