Acknowledgements
I should like to thank some people who have been very influential and generous over the years it has taken me to write this work. First and foremost I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to the late Ronald Witt. I was extremely fortunate to be a graduate student of his at Duke University and my appreciation for him is more than I can express. Unfortunately it has taken me over two decades to finish this book and he did not live to see its completion. I would also like to thank Craig Kallendorf of Texas A&M University for reading the manuscript and encouraging its publication. He too has been very generous to me in many ways over the years. The librarians at the Duke University and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill rare book collections were very helpful. Marie Berry of Campbell University library tracked down many interlibrary loan requests with great good will. Gina Peterman of Campbell greatly improved the manuscript with her editing. Finally, I would like to thank my wife Barbara and my children Benjamin and Elizabeth for making the years I have spent on this book better than I could have imagined.
B.G.M.
Buies Creek, North Carolina
July, 2018