CONTENTS
[ PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1840. ]
[ A WORD TO THE READER PREFIXED TO THE FIRST EDITION OF 1837. ]
PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1840.
HOWEVER numerous the works of fiction with which, my dear Reader, I have trespassed on your attention, I have published but three, of any account, in which the plot has been cast amidst the events, and coloured by the manner, of our own times. The first of these, Pelham, composed when I was little more than a boy, has the faults, and perhaps the merits, natural to a very early age,—when the novelty itself of life quickens the observation,—when we see distinctly, and represent vividly, what lies upon the surface of the world,—and when, half sympathising with the follies we satirise, there is a gusto in our paintings which atones for their exaggeration. As we grow older we observe less, we reflect more; and, like Frankenstein, we dissect in order to create.
The second novel of the present day,* which, after an interval of some years, I submitted to the world, was one I now, for the first time, acknowledge, and which (revised and corrected) will be included in this series, viz., Godolphin;—a work devoted to a particular portion of society, and the development of a peculiar class of character. The third, which I now reprint, is Ernest Maltravers,** the most mature, and, on the whole, the most comprehensive of all that I have hitherto written.
* For The Disowned is cast in the time of our grandfathers, and The Pilgrims of the Rhine had nothing to do with actual life, and is not, therefore, to be called a novel.
** At the date of this preface Night and Morning had not appeared.