LATE IN 1950, the Literary Executors of the late Mr. Mackenzie King,
W. Kaye Lamb, F. A. McGregor, J. W. Pickersgill and Norman A.
Robertson, decided to make his papers available for the preparation of
a biography. This was intended to take the place to some degree of
the memoirs which he had himself contemplated but on which for
various reasons he had made virtually no progress whatever. Accord-
ingly, funds which had originally been given by the Rockefeller
Foundation to Mr. King to aid him in the preparation of the memoirs
were transferred to the Literary Executors to be used by them in meet-
ing the necessary expenses arising from the biography. This re-grant
was later increased by the generosity of the Foundation.

When I was asked to write Mr. King's life, I was given free access
to the enormous collection of papers which had been entrusted to the
Literary Executors under the terms of his will. The research and
writing which were involved in the assignment proved to be much
heavier than they or I had expected, and hence only now is the first
volume in print. Much preliminary work, however, has been com-
pleted, and other volumes are expected to follow in due course.

The conditions of writing the book which were accepted by both
of us have made my task as author a very pleasant one. The Literary
Executors at the outset expressed the hope that so far as possible Mr.
Mackenzie King might be allowed to tell his own story. An effort was
therefore made to lend both colour and a sense of reality to the narra-
tive by using liberal excerpts from the diary and the correspondence,
both of which present much material which has not hitherto been acces-
sible. The Literary Executors and I also agreed that I should have a
"completely free hand in writing the book," though they were to be able
at any time to make whatever representations to me they might wish,

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