prefacial

“Pastoral, The Manse, The Islet, leaving out if you like all the prefacial matter and beginning at I.”

Vailima Letters

“-- Then again there is the PUFFER AND CONDENSER, wherein, if matter be wanting in the work, a prefacial waggon is put before the chapteral pony, the former acting the part of pemican, or concentrated essence, the latter representing the liquid necessary for cooking it; the whole forming a _potage au lecteur_, known among professional men as "soldier's broth.”

Lands of the Slave and the Free Cuba, the United States, and Canada