this section of the public chiefly that
the present edition is issued. In placing it before my new readers, I
have been asked by the publishers thoroughly to revise the work, and,
at the same time, to set at rest the many conflicting reports
concerning it and myself, which have been current since its initial
issue. The first of these requests I have complied with, and the many
typographic, and other errors, which disfigured the first edition,
have, I think I can safely say, now disappeared. The second request I
am about to fulfil; but, in order to do so, I must ask my readers to go
back with me to the beginning of all things, so far as this special
book is concerned.

The writing of the book was due more to accident than to design. I was
bent on becoming a dramatist, but, being quite unknown, I found it
impossible to induce the managers of the Melbourne Theatres to accept,
or even to read a play. At length it occurred to me I might further my
purpose by writing a novel. I should at all events secure a certain
amount of local attention. Up to that time I had written only one or
two short stories, and the "Cab" was not only the first book I ever
published, but the first book I ever wrote; so to youth and lack of
experience must be ascribed whatever was wanting in the book. I repeat
that the story was written only to attract local attention, and no one
was more astonished than I when it passed beyond the narrow circle for
which it had originally been intended.

My mind made up on this point, I enquired of a leading Melbourne
bookseller what style of book he sold most of He replied that the
detective stories of Gaboriau had a large sale; and as, at this time, I
had never even heard of this author, I bought all his works--eleven or
thereabouts--and read them carefully. The style of these stories
attracted me, and I determined to write a book of the same class;
containing a mystery, a murder, and a description of low life in
Melbourne. This was the origin of the "Cab." The central idea i.e. the
murder in a cab--came to me while driving at a late hour to St. Kilda,
a suburb of Melbourne; but it took some time and much thought to work
it out to a logical conclusion. I was two months sketching out the
skeleton of the novel, but even so, when I had written it, the result
proved unsatisfactory, for I found I had not sufficiently well
concealed the mystery upon which the whole interest of the book
depended. In the first draft I