A Citizen of the Country is about witchcraft, and it fell prey to the writer's worst curse: a typo that spoils a scene. On p. 406, line 2, Alexander Reisden finally makes a commitment to family--not to the family member he expected, nor the commitment he expected to make. He says "I want you to..." and changes everyone's lives. In the first American printing, it came out "I want to..."

Oops.

Heartfelt thanks for spreading the word. Correct your copy. You have my permission to go out and correct any other copies you see. Print this out and show it to the booksellers and tell them it's all right :-)

And, worse, I should have given credit in the acknowledgments to an inspiration of this book: the one, the only, the inimitably titled Through Russia on a Mustang (Boston, New York, Chicago, and San Francisco: Educational Publishing Company, 1901). It was written, not by the cowboy Thomas Jefferson Blantire, but by Thomas Stevens, who also wrote Around the World on a Bicycle.

Blantire is not Stevens, who was a reporter for the New York World; the Educational Publishing Company is not the company that published Blantire's book; none of the speculations about Blantire's sinister career relate to Stevens. But Stevens actually did ride 1100 miles across Russia in 1890, on a mustang from the Carver-Whitney Wild America Show, and all the quotes from Through Russia on a Mustang are Stevens'--including the ones about Russian witchcraft. A grand book if you can find it.

You can find his Around the World on a Bicycle, since it was recently republished by Stackpole Books, www.stackpolebooks.com . Heartily recommended.