From the preface to the first volume, Memories:

Readers of this book will quickly observe that Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher has small faith in the printed word; and those who have enjoyed the privilege of having " his fist shaken in their faces" will readily admit that the printed word, though faithfully taken down from his dictation, must lack a large measure of the power-the " aroma," as he calls it-which his personality lends to his spoken word.

Had Lord Fisher been allowed his own way, there would have been no Book. Not for the first time in his career, the need of serving his country and his country's Navy has over-ridden his personal feeling. These "Memories," therefore, must be regarded as a compromise ("the beastliest word in the English language"-see "The Times" of September gth, 1919) between the No-Book of Lord Fisher's inclination and the orderly, complete Autobiography which the public wishes to possess.

The book consists in the main of the author's ipsissima verba, dictated during the month of September, 1919. One or two chapters have been put together from fugitive writings which Lord Fisher had collected and printed (in noble and eloquently various type) as a gift to his friends after his death. The discreeter passages of the letters which he wrote to Lord Esher between 1903 and 1912 illustrate some portions of the life's work which-caring little for the past and much for the future, much for the idea and little for the fact-Lord Fisher has successfully declined to describe in his own words.