this I conclude), in the dull monotony of public
affairs, and in these long winter evenings, when we gather round the
fire, prepared for the gossip's tale, willing to indulge the fear and
to believe the legend, perhaps, dear Reader, thou mayest turn, not
reluctantly, even to these pages, for at least a newer excitement than
the Cholera, or for momentary relief from the everlasting discussion on
"the Bill." [The year of the Reform Bill.]

LONDON, December 22, 1831.

PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1840.

The strange history of Eugene Aram had excited my interest and wonder
long before the present work was composed or conceived. It so happened
that during Aram's residence at Lynn his reputation for learning had
attracted the notice of my grandfather,--a country gentleman living in
the same county, and of more intelligence and accomplishments than, at
that day, usually characterized his class. Aram frequently visited at
Heydon (my grandfather's house), and gave lessons--probably in no very
elevated branches of erudition--to the younger members of the family.
This I chanced to hear when I was on a visit in Norfolk some two years
before this novel was published; and it tended to increase the interest
with which I had previously speculated on the phenomena of a trial
which, take it altogether, is perhaps the most remarkable in the
register of English crime. I endeavored to collect such anecdotes of
Aram's life and manners as tradition and hearsay still kept afloat.
These anecdotes were so far uniform that they all concurred in
representing him as a person who, till the detection of the crime for
which he was sentenced, had appeared of the mildest character and the
most unexceptionable morals. An invariable gentleness and patience in
his mode of tuition--qualities then very uncommon at school--had made
him so beloved by his pupils at Lynn that, in after life, there was
scarcely one of them who did not persist in the belief of his innocence.

His personal and moral peculiarities, as described in these pages, are
such as were related to me by persons who had heard him described by his
contemporaries, the calm, benign countenance; the delicate health; the
thoughtful stoop; the noiseless step; the custom, not uncommon with
scholars and absent men, of muttering to himself; a singular eloquence
in conversation, when once roused from silence; an active tenderness
and charity to the poor, with whom he was always ready to share h