This critical edition of The Fatal Dowry was undertaken as a Thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Ph.D. at Princeton University. It was compiled under the guidance and direction of Professor T.M. Parrott of that institution, and every page of it is indebted to him for suggestion, advice, and criticism. I can but inadequately indicate the scope of his painstaking and scholarly supervision, and can even less adequately express my appreciation of his ever-patient aid, which alone made this work possible.

I desire also to acknowledge my debt to Professor J. Duncan Spaeth of Princeton University, for his valuable suggestions in regard to the presentation of my material, notably in the Introduction; also to Professor T.W. Baldwin of Muskingum College and Mr. Henry Bowman, both of them then fellow graduate students of mine at Princeton, for assistance on several occasions in matters of special inquiry; and to Dr. M.W. Tyler of the Princeton Department of History for directing me in clearing up a lego-historical point; and finally to the libraries of Yale and Columbia Universities for their kind loan of needed books.