"The Hell, Purgatory, Paradise of Dante Alighieri" Edited with Translation and Notes by Arthur John Butler

The editor who has begun elsewhere than at the beginning of the work which he undertakes to edit, however good his motives for taking that course may at the time have appeared, has reason to regret it when in the progress of events he is carried back to the beginning.
Unless he wishes to have his book incomplete, the moment must ultimately come when he has to do for the whole work what he has done for its parts, viz. write a preface. Then he finds that he has already used up on the parts a great deal of material which would have been equally useful as an introduction to the whole, and perhaps more in place; while in some cases it is pretty sure to happen that he has appended to the later portions remarks which are out of date when what should be the earlier portion appears. On the other hand, it is to be said that the preface to the complete work is likely to involve the most Labor; and of this he may, by a judicious postponement, very possibly succeed in getting a good deal taken off his hands by other people.