Gerald Fitzgerald, the Chevalier: A Novel

The Publishers feel that some explanation is necessary concerning the tardy publication in book form of this story. Gerald Fitzgerald appeared as a serial in the Dublin University Magazine . The Magazine at the time was changing hands, Lever’s old friend and publisher, James M’Glashan, having just died. Lever was always eager to avoid trouble, and ever readier to undertake new work than to concern himself about work already done; and possibly—for there is not sufficient evidence to speak with certainty—owing to some trouble with the new proprietors of the Dublin University Magazine , he decided to put aside Gerald Fitzgerald . When he was rearranging his novels for a fresh issue, shortly before his death, he omitted a few of his stories from the collection, but for no adequate reason which can be discovered. He was assisted in the preparation of this collected edition by his daughter, Mrs. Nevill, who died last year. Mrs. Nevill could not account, for the omission of Gerald Fitzgerald , and left it to the judgment of the present publishers whether the work should be issued or not. After very careful consideration, and with full respect for Lever’s memory and reputation, they have decided that the novel should be issued as a substantive work. It is evident that Lever spent much pains upon the story; and though it is not to be expected that it will rival in popularity his earlier and more boisterous performances, yet the publishers believe it will not in any way damage his reputation as a story-teller.
London, March 1899.
At the foot of the hill on which stands the Campidoglio at Rome, and close beneath the ruins that now encumber the Tarpeian rock, runs a mean-looking alley, called the Viccolo D’Orsi, but better known to the police as the ‘Viccolo dei Ladri,’ or ‘Thieves’ Corner’—the epithet being, it is said, conferred in a spirit the very reverse of calumnious.
Long and straggling, and too narrow to admit of any but foot-passengers, its dwellings are marked by a degree of poverty and destitution even greater than such quarters usually exhibit. Rudely constructed of fragments taken from ancient temples and monuments, richly carved architraves and finely cut friezes are to be seen embedded amid masses of crumbling masonry, and all the evidences of a cultivated and enlightened age mingled up with the squalor and misery of present want.