Of the thirteen stories included in this volume, "The Gold Wulfric,"
"The Two Carnegies," and "John Cann's Treasure" originally appeared in
the pages of the _Cornhill_; "The Third Time" and "The Search Party's
Find" are from _Longman's Magazine_; "Harry's Inheritance" first saw the
light in the _English Illustrated_; and "Lucretia," "My Uncle's Will,"
"Olga Davidoff's Husband," "Isaline and I," "Professor Milliter's
Dilemma," and "In Strict Confidence," obtained hospitable shelter
between the friendly covers of _Belgravia_. My title-piece, "The
Beckoning Hand," is practically new, having only been published before
as the Christmas supplement of a provincial newspaper. My thanks are due
to Messrs. Smith and Elder, Longmans, Macmillan, and Chatto and Windus
for kind permission to reprint most of the stories here. If anybody
reads them and likes them, let me take this opportunity (as an
unprejudiced person) of recommending to him my other volume of "Strange
Stories," which I consider every bit as gruesome as this one. Should I
succeed in attaining the pious ambition of the Fat Boy, and "making your
flesh creep," then, as somebody once remarked before, "this work will
not have been written in vain."
G. A.
THE NOOK, DORKING,
_Christmas Day_, 1886.