Project Gutenberg's Ernest Maltravers, Complete, by Edward Bulwer-Lytton

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: Ernest Maltravers, Complete

Author: Edward Bulwer-Lytton

Release Date: March 16, 2009 [EBook #7649]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ERNEST MALTRAVERS, COMPLETE ***

Produced by David Widger and Dagny

ERNEST MALTRAVERS

By Edward Bulwer Lytton

(Lord Lytton)

DEDICATION:

TO
THE GREAT GERMAN PEOPLE,
A race of thinkers and of critics;
A foreign but familiar audience,
Profound in judgment, candid in reproof, generous in appreciation,
This work is dedicated
By an English Author.

PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1840.

HOWEVER numerous the works of fiction with which, my dear Reader, I
have trespassed on your attention, I leave published but three, of any
account, in which the plot has been cast amidst the events, and coloured
by the manner, of our own times. The first of these, _Pelham_, composed
when I was little more than a boy, has the faults, and perhaps the
merits, natural to a very early age,--when the novelty itself of
life quickens the observation,--when we see distinctly, and represent
vividly, what lies upon the surface of the world,--and when, half
sympathising with the follies we satirise, there is a gusto in our
paintings which atones for their exaggeration. As we grow older we
observe less, we reflect more; and, like Frankenstein, we dissect in
order to create.

The second novel of the present day,* which, after an interval of some
years, I submitted to the world, was one I now, for the first time,
acknowledge, and which (revised and corrected) will be included in this
series, viz., _Godolphin_;--a work devoted to a particular portion
of society, and the development of a peculiar class of character. The
third, which I now reprint, is _Ernest Maltravers_,** the most mature,
and, on the whole, the most comprehensive of all that I have hitherto
written.

* For _The Disowned_ is cast in the time of our grandfathers, and _The
Pilgrims of the Rhine_ had nothing to do with actual life, and is not,
therefore, to be called a novel.

** At the date of this preface