The story of the Sun, New York: 1833-1928 / by Frank M. O'Brien ; with an introduction by Edward Page Mitchell ...

INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST EDITION xi
days of the Beaches, of Dana, of Laffan, and of Reick
to the time of Mr. Munsey's purchase of the property in
the summer of 1916, Mr. O'Brien has done what has
never been undertaken before, so far as is known to the
writer of this introduction, for any newspaper with a
career of considerable span.
There have been general histories of Journalism,
presenting casually the main facts of evolution and
progress in the special instance. There have been satisfactory narratives of journalistic episodes, reasonably
accurate accounts of certain aspects or dynastic periods
of newspaper experience, excellent portrait biographies
or autobiographies of journalists of genius and high
achievement, with the eminent man usually in strong
light in the foreground and his newspaper seldom nearer
than the middle distance. But here, probably for the first
time in literature of this sort, we have a real biography of
a newspaper itself, covering the whole range of its existence, exhibiting every function of its organism, illustrating every quality that has been conspicuous in the successive stages of its growth. The Sun is the hero of Mr.
O'Brien's Story of "The Sun." The human participants
figure in their incidental relation to the main thread of
its life and activities. They do their parts, big or little,
as they pass in interesting procession. When they have
done their parts they disappear, as in real life, and the
story goes on, just as the Sun has gone on, without them
except as they may have left their personal impress on the
newspaper's structure or its superficial decoration.
Iuring no small part of its four score and five years
of intelligent interest in the world's thoughts and doings
it has been the Sun's fortune to be regarded as in a some