The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Cloister and the Hearth, by Charles Reade

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Title: The Cloister and the Hearth

Author: Charles Reade

Last Updated: January 18, 2009
Release Date: February 15, 2006 [EBook #1366]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH ***

Produced by Neil McLachlan and David Widger

THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH

by Charles Reade

Etext Notes:

1. Greek passages are enclosed in angled brackets, e.g. {methua}, and
have been transliterated according to:alpha A, a
beta B, b
gamma G, g
delta D, d
epsilon E, e
zeta Z, z
eta Y, y
theta Th, th
iota I, i
kappa K, k
lamda L, l
mu M, m
nu N, n
omicron O, o
pi P, p
rho R, r
sigma S, s
tau T, t
phi Ph, ph
chi Ch, ch
psi Ps, ps
xi X, x
upsilon U, u
omega W, w

2. All diacritics have been removed from this version

3. References for the Author's footnotes are enclosed in square
brackets(e.g. (1)) and collected at the end of the chapter they occur
in.

4. There are 100 chapters in the book, each starting with CHAPTER R,
where R is the chapter number expressed as a Roman numeral.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

A small portion of this tale appeared in Once a Week, July-September,
1859, under the title of "A Good Fight."

After writing it, I took wider views of the subject, and also felt
uneasy at having deviated unnecessarily from the historical outline of
a true story. These two sentiments have cost me more than a year's very
hard labour, which I venture to think has not been wasted. After this
plain statement I trust all who comment on this work will see that to
describe it as a reprint would be unfair to the public and to me. The
English language is copious, and, in any true man's hands, quite able
to convey the truth--namely, that one-fifth of the present work is a
reprint, and four-fifths of it a new composition.

CHARLES READE

CHAPTER I

Not a day passes over the earth, but men and wo