


Produced by David Widger





CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH

By Charles Dudley Warner




PREFACE

When I consented to prepare this volume for a series, which should
deal with the notables of American history with some familiarity and
disregard of historic gravity, I did not anticipate the seriousness of
the task. But investigation of the subject showed me that while Captain
John Smith would lend himself easily enough to the purely facetious
treatment, there were historic problems worthy of a different handling,
and that if the life of Smith was to be written, an effort should be
made to state the truth, and to disentangle the career of the adventurer
from the fables and misrepresentations that have clustered about it.

The extant biographies of Smith, and the portions of the history of
Virginia that relate to him, all follow his own narrative, and accept
his estimate of himself, and are little more than paraphrases of his
story as told by himself. But within the last twenty years some new
contemporary evidence has come to light, and special scholars have
expended much critical research upon different portions of his career.
The result of this modern investigation has been to discredit much of
the romance gathered about Smith and Pocahontas, and a good deal to
reduce his heroic proportions. A vague report of--these scholarly
studies has gone abroad, but no effort has been made to tell the real
story of Smith as a connected whole in the light of the new researches.

This volume is an effort to put in popular form the truth about Smith's
adventures, and to estimate his exploits and character. For this purpose
I have depended almost entirely upon original contemporary material,
illumined as it now is by the labors of special editors.