story of Caleb Williams and the tale of Bluebeard, than derived any
hints from that admirable specimen of the terrific. Falkland was my
Bluebeard, who had perpetrated atrocious crimes, which, if discovered,
he might expect to have all the world roused to revenge against him.
Caleb Williams was the wife who, in spite of warning, persisted in his
attempts to discover the forbidden secret; and, when he had succeeded,
struggled as fruitlessly to escape the consequences, as the wife of
Bluebeard in washing the key of the ensanguined chamber, who, as often
as she cleared the stain of blood from the one side, found it showing
itself with frightful distinctness on the other.

When I had proceeded as far as the early pages of my third volume, I
found myself completely at a stand. I rested on my arms from the 2nd of
January, 1794, to the 1st of April following, without getting forward in
the smallest degree. It has ever been thus with me in works of any
continuance. The bow will not be for ever bent:

"Opere in longo fas est obrepere somnum."

I endeavoured, however, to take my repose to myself in security, and not
to inflict a set of crude and incoherent dreams upon my readers. In the
meantime, when I revived, I revived in earnest, and in the course of
that month carried on my work with unabated speed to the end.

Thus I have endeavoured to give a true history of the concoction and
mode of writing of this mighty trifle. When I had done, I soon became
sensible that I had done in a manner nothing. How many flat and insipid
parts does the book contain! How terribly unequal does it appear to me!
From time to time the author plainly reels to and fro like a drunken
man. And, when I had done all, what had I done? Written a book to amuse
boys and girls in their vacant hours, a story to be hastily gobbled up
by them, swallowed in a pusillanimous and unanimated mood, without
chewing and digestion. I was in this respect greatly impressed with the
confession of one of the most accomplished readers and excellent critics
that any author could have fallen in with (the unfortunate Joseph
Gerald). He told me that he had received my book late one evening, and
had read through the three volumes before he closed his eyes. Thus, what
had cost me twelve months' labour, ceaseless heartaches and industry,
now sinking in despair, and now roused and sustained in unusual energy,
he went over in a few hours, shut the book, laid himself on his pillow,