A year or two since, when I wrote _Jethou; or Crusoe Life in the
Channel Isles_, I received a large number of press reviews and
criticisms, all but two of which were of a very satisfactory and
encouraging tone, and spoke so flatteringly of my future career as a
writer of fiction, as to cause a blush--perhaps of modesty--perhaps
of hope--to suffuse my lily cheek. One of the adverse critics, who
must have been troubled with liver complaint in some form, took a
pessimistic view of my work, doubting the facts contained in the book,
and--in a literary sense--running amuck with the fictional portions.
But, as he unwittingly helped the sale of the first edition of
_Jethou_, I thank the wielder of this biting pen.
The other detractor found no particular fault with the book, but
thought the writer somewhat _lacking in high invention_, _i.e._, in
imaginative power.
Of course few persons see their own faults, and I had never even
dreamed that I had any lack of inventive power. But now that my
deficiency has been suggested to me by the critic of London’s
leading daily newspaper, I venture to place the present volume before
the public as an effort towards the vindication of my imaginative
power, and with the earnest hope that something may be found in it
of sufficient interest to repay the reader for the time spent in its
perusal.