Preface.
Our own Penny-dreadful.
I am always coming across old manuscripts. I am not sure of the date of the following, but I fancy it must have been written for a prize, which, strange to say, it failed to secure. The only conditions were that the story should have lots of “go” in it, that the incidents should be natural, the tone elevating, and the characters carefully studied.
I ask any of my readers if this does not fulfil all these conditions? I know when it was returned to me as “not quite the style we care about,” I was extremely angry, and replied that I should very much like to see what style they did care about, if not this. They had not the common politeness to reply!
Another publisher to whom I submitted it actually wrote back that he was not in the habit of publishing “penny dreadfuls.” I was never so insulted in all my life!
However, as a specimen of the kind of story some boys read, and some editors do not publish, the reader shall have my “penny dreadful,” and decide for himself whether it has not lots of “go,” is not strictly true to nature, elevating in tone, and carefully studied. If it is not, then he had better not read it!
The Plaster Cast; Or Septimus Minor’s Million.
A Thrilling Story in Fifteen Chapters, by the Author of “Blugram Blunderbuss, or the Dog-Man.”