PR4494 1900 MAIN Bedicated to BARON VON TAUCHNITZ, In cordial remembrance of My relations with him as Publisher and Friend. In their original form of publication, the stories contained in this volume were restricted within limits which alike precluded elaborate development of character and subtle handling of events. They are emphatically what I have called them on the title-page-Stories in Outline. As such, they take their modest place in the Gallery of Fiction. They have their attraction for the writer, as special studies in his Art; and their attraction for the reader, as narratives which endeavour to interest him without making large demands on his attention and his time. The first story in the present series originally appeared in the Christmas Number of the Graphic Illustrated Newspaper, for 1871. "Miss or Mrs.?" 981 was fortunate enough to find its way at once to the favour of an unusually large circle of readers. In England and the English Colonies, in the United States, and on the Continent of Europe, I have to thank the public kindness, on this occasion, for the same hearty welcome. Of the shorter stories which follow, "Blow up with the Brig" and "The Fatal Cradle" were contributed to the Christmas Numbers of All the Year Round, for 1859 and 1861. Trifles as they are, they were both favourites with the kindest reader my works have ever had-my dear lost friend, Charles Dickens. The last story in the collection belongs to a later date. It was published, in England and America simultaneously, during the year 1874— under the title of "Fatal Fortune." Appearing as it does, in the present Volume, immediately after "The Fatal Cradle," it has been thought desirable, for variety's sake, to alter the title; and the little story is now renamed:-"A MAD MARRIAGE." W. C. London, April, 1875. |