Excerpt from A Guide to the Victoria History of the Counties of England The object of this introduction is mainly to direct the attention of contributors to certain general rules which should be scrupulously observed by them in any work they may undertake for the Victoria County History.' The essential facts to be borne in mind by every writer are (a) that the present work concerns itself with local and not with national history and (e) that as the various sections are contributed by different persons it is absolutely necessary that each writer should be most careful to confine his work strictly within the limits of his own subject. Every contributor should read the separate instructions for each section of the history, and before submitting his article to the general editors should carefully revise what he has written with a view of seeing that it has been kept within the limits of local history and has not encroached on subjects other than his own. The style adopted by all the contributors should be as concise and simple as possible and strict accuracy should be maintained. Imaginative descriptions of circumstances and scenes should be avoided. So far as possible no definite statements should be made for which some original authority cannot be given in a footnote (unless such state ments are made from personal observation). While every reasonable means should be used to clear up points of uncertainty and difficulty, if those means fail it should be stated that investigation has failed to yield the required information at the same time a suggested solution of a difficulty may be given. Difficulties should be submitted to the general editors for advice. English forms of personal names, both surnames and christian names, should as far as possible be used. With regard to these, translations of the more important Latin and French forms of those used in England will be found in Appendices Nos. IV. And V. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.