The Astonishing History of Troy Town

❖

Arthur Quiller-Couch

by

Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch.

1914

This etext prepared from a reprint of a version published in 1914.

TO CHARLES CANNAN.

My Dear Cannan,

It is told of a distinguished pedagogue that one day a heated stranger burst into his study, and, wringing him by the hand, cried, "Heaven bless and reward you, sir! Heaven preserve you long to educate old England's boyhood! I have walked many a weary, weary mile to see your face again," he continued, flourishing a scrap of paper, "and assure you that but for your discipline, obeyed by me as a boy and remembered as a man, I should never—no, never—have won the Ticket-of-Leave which you behold!"

In something of the same spirit I bring you this small volume. The child of encouragement is given to staggering its parent; and I make no doubt that as you turn the following pages, you will more than once exclaim, with the old lady in the ballad—

"O, deary me! this is none of I!"

Nevertheless, it would be strange indeed if this story bore no marks of you; for a hundred kindly instances have taught me to come with sure reliance for your reproof and praise. Few, I imagine, have the good fortune of a critic so friendly and inexorable; and if the critic has been unsparing, he has been used unsparingly.

Wargrave, Henley-on-Thames,
June 7, 1888