Produced by Lionel G. Sear
THE LAST GALLEY
IMPRESSIONS AND TALES
By Arthur Conan Doyle
PREFACE
I have written “Impressions and Tales” upon the title-page of this
volume, because I have included within the same cover two styles of work
which present an essential difference.
The second half of the collection consists of eight stories, which
explain themselves.
The first half is made up of a series of pictures of the past which
maybe regarded as trial flights towards a larger ideal which I have
long had in my mind. It has seemed to me that there is a region
between actual story and actual history which has never been adequately
exploited. I could imagine, for example, a work dealing with some great
historical epoch, and finding its interest not in the happenings to
particular individuals, their adventures and their loves, but in the
fascination of the actual facts of history themselves. These facts might
be coloured with the glamour which the writer of fiction can give, and
fictitious characters and conversations might illustrate them; but none
the less the actual drama of history and not the drama of invention
should claim the attention of the reader. I have been tempted sometimes
to try the effect upon a larger scale; but meanwhile these short
sketches, portraying various crises in the story of the human race, are
to be judged as experiments in that direction.
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE.
WINDLESHAM, CROWBOROUGH, April, 1911.
CONTENTS
PART I
THE LAST GALLEY
THE CONTEST THROUGH THE VEIL
AN ICONOCLAST
GIANT MAXIMIN
THE COMING OF THE HUNS
THE LAST OF THE LEGIONS
THE FIRST CARGO
THE HOME-COMING
THE RED STAR