Author of
"Beggars All," "The Madonna of a Day," "The Zeit-Geist," etc.
FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY
NEW YORK and LONDON
1905
Copyright, 1905, by
FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY
[Printed in the United States of America]
——
Published, March, 1905
PUBLISHERS' INTRODUCTORY NOTE
"The story's the thing" is a creed to which novel readers are supposed to give unanimous adherence. Art, literary style, study of character, and other of the higher, subtler elements of fiction, good as they are acknowledged to be, must yield first place to "the story," and afterwards shift for themselves the best way they may. How many so-called novel readers adhere to this creed is a matter of question—probably not as many as its exponents believe. Unquestionably there are two forms of fiction—the one in which art, and style, and character are pre-eminent, and control the course of the story, and the one in which "the story's the thing," and often the only thing. But why should not these two forms of fiction be blended? Why should not the art of George Eliot or Mr. Meredith be wedded to the thrilling action and absorbing mystery of Anthony Hope and Sir A. Conan Doyle?