Excerpt from Aberdeen Awa: Sketches of Its Men, Manners, and Customs as Delineated in Brown's Book-Stall, 1892-4

The origin of this volume is entirely fortuitous and accidental, and but for the solicitation of Mr. E. T. Smith, my successor as proprietor of the business of A. Brown & Co., it would not have appeared in print, or obtruded itself on the attention of the public.

In the go-ahead style of the youth of the present day, he aspired to have an advertising medium of his own, intended for circulation amongst the customers of the old firm of A. Brown & Co., and knowing that during my fifty years' connection I had accumulated much information regarding the firm and its various partners since it began in 1785, he asked me to furnish some details of its origin, progress, and work, which might be padding to his projected serial, and form something like a thread through it to bind the past with the present.

His singular venture became plural, and for three years (1892-94) I had to furnish samples of my reminiscences, such as they were, and had to adapt them according to the space allowed. As they progressed in number the interest in them increased, and numerous demands for the earlier numbers of the Book-Stall were received which could not be supplied. From being considered mere padding, the sketches came to be eagerly looked for, were most favourably criticised by the press, and on their conclusion were considered by the proprietor as "our mainstay, our backbone... so appreciated that the public, like another Oliver Twist, is asking for more."

So, in reply to numerous requests from many Aber. donians at home and abroad, backed up by the press critics these sketches are submitted to the public as now revised, corrected, and largely extended, by desire.

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