Project Gutenberg's When Valmond Came to Pontiac, Complete, by Gilbert Parker

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Title: When Valmond Came to Pontiac, Complete

Author: Gilbert Parker

Last Updated: March 15, 2009
Release Date: October 18, 2006 [EBook #6205]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VALMOND TO PONTIAC ***

Produced by David Widger

WHEN VALMOND CAME TO PONTIAC, Complete

The Story of a Lost Napoleon

By Gilbert Parker

INTRODUCTION

In one sense this book stands by itself. It is like nothing else I have
written, and if one should seek to give it the name of a class, it might
be called an historical fantasy.

It followed The Trail of the Sword and preceded The Seats of the Mighty,
and appeared in the summer of 1895. The critics gave it a reception
which was extremely gratifying, because, as it seemed to me, they
realised what I was trying to do; and that is a great deal. One great
journal said it read as though it had been written at a sitting; another
called it a tour de force, and the grave Athenaeum lauded it in a key
which was likely to make me nervous, since it seemed to set a standard
which I should find it hard to preserve in the future. But in truth
the newspaper was right which said that the book read as though it was
written at a sitting, and that it was a tour de force. The facts are
that the book was written, printed, revised, and ready for press in five
weeks.

The manuscript of the book was complete within four weeks. It possessed
me. I wrote night and day. There were times when I went to bed and,
unable to sleep, I would get up at two o'clock or three o'clock in the
morning and write till breakfast time. A couple of hours' walk after
breakfast, and I would write again until nearly two o'clock. Then
luncheon; afterwards a couple of hours in the open air, and I would
again write till eight o'clock in the evening. The world was shut out. I
moved in a dream. The book was begun at Hot Springs, in Virginia, in
the annex to the old Hot Springs Hotel. I could not write in the hotel
itself, so I went to the annex, and in the big building--in the early
spring-time--I worked night and day. There was no o