In the tightly-spaced note penned on the front blank, Hanley expresses his regret at not having written for children, despite the changed nature of childhood innocence. "I wrote this book in ten days, for money, and a year later had completely forgotten I'd written it, a saving grace in an acute period. I would not read it now, and I would not write it now. If I were now asked what I would have liked to have done I should say that I would have liked to have written for children ... Granted that all children have a too keen sense of calculation to-day, they yet remain a country of ever changing horizons, a frontierless land ...."