Peter Ibbetson

Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Keren Vergon, Charlie
Kirschner, and Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders
by George du Maurier
With an Introduction by His Cousin Lady ( Madge Plunket )
Edited and Illustrated by George Du Maurier
The writer of this singular autobiography was my cousin, who died at the ——- Criminal Lunatic Asylum, of which he had been an inmate three years.
He had been removed thither after a sudden and violent attack of homicidal mania (which fortunately led to no serious consequences), from ——- Jail, where he had spent twenty-five years, having been condemned to penal servitude for life, for the murder of —— ——, his relative.
He had been originally sentenced to death.
It was at —— Lunatic Asylum that he wrote these memoirs, and I received the MS. soon after his decease, with the most touching letter, appealing to our early friendship, and appointing me his literary executrix.
It was his wish that the story of his life should be published just as he had written it.
I have found it unadvisable to do this. It would revive, to no useful purpose, an old scandal, long buried and forgotten, and thereby give pain or annoyance to people who are still alive.
Nor does his memory require rehabilitation among those who knew him, or knew anything of him—the only people really concerned. His dreadful deed has long been condoned by all (and they are many) who knew the provocation he had received and the character of the man who had provoked him.