athedral, which he left one of the best cathedral libraries in Europe.
He died at Durham in 1932.

Apart from _The Lost Stradivarius_, Falkner was the author of two other
novels, _The Nebuly Coat_ (1903--also published in Penguin Books) and
_Moonfleet_ (1898). He also wrote a History of Oxfordshire, handbooks to
that county and to Berkshire, historical short stories, and some
mediaevalist verse.

THE LOST STRADIVARIUS

Letter from MISS SOPHIA MALTRAVERS
to her Nephew, SIR EDWARD MALTRAVERS,
then a Student at Christ Church, Oxford.

13 Pauncefort Buildings, Bath,
Oct. 21, 1867.

MY DEAR EDWARD,

It was your late father's dying request that certain events which
occurred in his last years should be communicated to you on your coming
of age. I have reduced them to writing, partly from my own recollection,
which is, alas! still too vivid, and partly with the aid of notes taken
at the time of my brother's death. As you are now of full age, I submit
the narrative to you. Much of it has necessarily been exceedingly
painful to me to write, but at the same time I feel it is better that
you should hear the truth from me than garbled stories from others who
did not love your father as I did.

Your loving Aunt,
SOPHIA MALTRAVERS

To Sir Edward Maltravers, Bart.

"A tale out of season is as music in mourning."
--ECCLESIASTICUS xxii. 6.

MISS SOPHIA MALTRAVERS' STORY

CHAPTER I

Your father, John Maltravers, was born in 1820 at Worth, and succeeded
his father and mine, who died when we were still young children. John
was sent to Eton in due course, and in 1839, when he was nineteen years
of age, it was determined that he should go to Oxford. It was intended
at first to enter him at Christ Church; but Dr. Sarsdell, who visited us
at Worth in the summer of 1839, persuaded Mr. Thoresby, our guardian, to
send him instead to Magdalen Hall. Dr. Sarsdell was himself Principal of
that institution, and represented that John, who then exhibited some
symptoms of delicacy, would meet with more personal attention under his
care than he could hope to do in so large a college as Christ Church.
Mr. Thoresby, ever solicitous for his ward's welfare, readily waived
other considerations in favour of an arrangement which he considered
conducive to John's health, and he was accordingly matriculated at
Magdalen Hall in the autumn of 1839.

Dr. Sarsdell had not been u