The Project Gutenberg EBook of Rambles Beyond Railways;, by Wilkie Collins

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Title: Rambles Beyond Railways;
or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot

Author: Wilkie Collins

Release Date: March 20, 2009 [EBook #28367]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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RAMBLES BEYOND RAILWAYS.

[Illustration: LAMORNA COVE.]

RAMBLES BEYOND RAILWAYS;

OR,

Notes in Cornwall taken A-Foot.

BY WILKIE COLLINS,

AUTHOR OF
"ANTONINA," "THE WOMAN IN WHITE," ETC.

[Illustration: The Land's End, Cornwall.]

_NEW EDITION._

LONDON:
RICHARD BENTLEY: NEW BURLINGTON STREET.
Publisher in Ordinary to Her Majesty.
1861.

DEDICATED TO

THE COMPANION OF MY WALK THROUGH CORNWALL,

HENRY C. BRANDLING.

PREFACE

TO

THE PRESENT EDITION.

I visited Cornwall, for the first time, in the summer and autumn of
1850; and in the winter of the same year, I wrote this book.

At that time, the title attached to these pages was strictly descriptive
of the state of the county, when my companion and I walked through it.
But when, little more than a year afterwards, a second edition of this
volume was called for, the all-conquering railway had invaded Cornwall
in the interval, and had practically contradicted me on my own
title-page.

To rechristen my work was out of the question--I should simply have
destroyed its individuality. Ladies may, and do, often change their
names for the better; but books enjoy no such privilege. In this
embarrassing position, I ended by treating the ill-timed intrusion of
the railway into my literary affairs, as a certain Abbe (who was also an
author,) once treated the overthrow of the Swedish Constitution, in the
reign of Gustavus the Third. Having written a profound work, to prove
that the Constitution, as at that time settled, was secure from all
political accidents, the Abbe was surprised in his study, one day, by
the appearance of a gentleman, who disturbed hi