Project Gutenberg's The Battle Of The Strong, Complete, by Gilbert Parker

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Title: The Battle Of The Strong, Complete
A Romance of Two Kingdoms

Author: Gilbert Parker

Last Updated: March 13, 2009
Release Date: November 18, 2004 [EBook #6236]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BATTLE OF THE STRONG, COMPLETE ***

Produced by David Widger

THE BATTLE OF THE STRONG, Complete

[A ROMANCE OF TWO KINGDOMS]

By Gilbert Parker

CONTENTS:

THE INVASION

ELEVEN YEARS AFTER ELEVEN YEARS AFTER

IN FRANCE--NEAR FIVE MONTHS AFTER

IN JERSEY FIVE YEARS LATER IN JERSEY FIVE YEARS LATER

DURING ONE YEAR LATER DURING ONE YEAR LATER

IN JERSEY--A YEAR LATER

INTRODUCTION

This book is a protest and a deliverance. For seven years I had written
continuously of Canada, though some short stories of South Sea life, and
the novel Mrs. Falchion, had, during that time, issued from my pen.
It looked as though I should be writing of the Far North all my life.
Editors had begun to take that view; but from the start it had never
been my view. Even when writing Pierre and His People I was determined
that I should not be cabined, cribbed, and confined in one field; that
I should not, as some other men have done, wind in upon myself, until
at last each succeeding book would be but a variation of some previous
book, and I should end by imitating myself, become the sacrifice to the
god of the pin-hole.

I was warned not to break away from Canada; but all my life I had been
warned, and all my life I had followed my own convictions. I would
rather not have written another word than be corralled, bitted, saddled,
and ridden by that heartless broncho-buster, the public, which wants a
man who has once pleased it, to do the same thing under the fret of whip
and spur for ever. When I went to the Island of Jersey, in 1897, it was
to shake myself free of what might become a mere obsession. I determined
that, as wide as my experiences had been in life, so would my writing
be, whether it pleased the public or not. I was determined to fulfil
myself; and in doing so to take