The Ingoldsby Country: Literary Landmarks of the "Ingoldsby Legends"

The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Ingoldsby Country, by Charles G. (Charles George) Harper, Illustrated by Charles G. (Charles George) Harper
THE INGOLDSBY COUNTRY
THE DARK ENTRY, CANTERBURY, FROM THE GREEN COURT.
A long narrow vaulted passage, paved with flagstones, vulgarly known by the name of the 'Dark Entry.'
The Legend of Nell Cook.
Frontispiece.
LITERARY LANDMARKS OF THE INGOLDSBY LEGENDS
BY CHARLES G. HARPER
AUTHOR OF THE BRIGHTON ROAD, THE PORTSMOUTH ROAD, THE DOVER ROAD, THE BATH ROAD, THE EXETER ROAD, THE GREAT NORTH ROAD, THE NORWICH ROAD, THE HOLYHEAD ROAD, THE CAMBRIDGE, ELY, AND KING'S LYNN ROAD, AND STAGE-COACH AND MAIL IN DAYS OF YORE
ILLUSTRATED BY THE AUTHOR
LONDON ADAM & CHARLES BLACK 1904
Ingoldsby has always been of that comparatively small number of authors who command a personal interest and affection. Reading the Legends you cannot choose but see that when he sat down, often at the midnight hour, to dash off the fun and frolic that came so readily to his mind, it was a part of himself that appeared upon the page. He did not and could not, when he wrote for publication under a pseudonym, be other than himself, and did not self-consciously draw a veil of style around him and speak, a cloaked figure lacking ordinary human attributes, or as other than a man of the world. He claimed no sacerdotal privileges, and we know, from the published Life and Letters by his son, that he was in his life and intimacies, as the Reverend R. H. Barham, the same genial wit and humorist he appeared as Tom Ingoldsby. He must, therefore, have been a likeable man, and those who knew him were fortunate persons. The next best thing to knowing him is to know something of the Ingoldsby Country, that corner of Kent where he was born and whose legends he has put to such splendid literary uses. The Ingoldsby Legends have so long since become a classic that it is indeed somewhat surprising that no literary pilgrim, for love of their author and interest in his career, has before this traced the landmarks of his storied district.