In many places Queen Victoria caused extracts, copied from her own private Diaries, dealing with important political events or describing momentous interviews, to be inserted in the volumes, with the evident intention of illustrating and completing the record.
[Footnote 1: A set of volumes containing the Queen's letters to Lord John Russell came into our hands too late to be made use of for the present publication.] It became obvious at once that it was impossible to deal with these papers exhaustively.

They would provide material for a historical series extending to several hundred volumes.

Moreover, on the other hand, there are many gaps, as a great deal of the business of State was transacted by interviews of which no official record is preserved.
His Majesty the King having decided that no attempt should be made to publish these papers _in extenso_, it was necessary to determine upon some definite principle of selection.

It became clear that the only satisfactory plan was to publish specimens of such documents as would serve to bring out the development of the Queen's character and disposition, and to give typical instances of her methods in dealing with political and social matters--to produce, in fact, a book for British citizens and British subjects, rather than a book for students of political history.

That the inner working of the unwritten constitution of the country; that some of the unrealised checks and balances; that the delicate equipoise of the component parts of our executive machinery, should stand revealed, was inevitable.