The Book of the Dun Cow was published in 1978 by the Junior Books Division of Harper & Row (as HarperCollins entitled itself in those days). This was my own first book of any significance. It was written in a rollicking, unselfconscious enthusiasm. Simply, I was doing on a larger scale what I had been doing all my life till then: making up stories. Telling them. Writing them down. Time has passed. With this present volume I shall have published more than thirty books, which together represent most of the literary genres: novels, short stories, poetry, expository prose, drama, devotional literature. Children's books. Through the length of such activity, an author is not likely to remain unselfconscious about his craft and his career--and I have not.