The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Vicar of Bullhampton, by Anthony
Trollope, Illustrated by H. Woods

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Title: The Vicar of Bullhampton

Author: Anthony Trollope

Release Date: September 5, 2008 [eBook #26541]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

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THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON.

by

ANTHONY TROLLOPE.

With Thirty Illustrations by H. Woods.

[Illustration: Waiting-Room at the Assize Court. (frontispiece)]

[Illustration for title page]

London:
Bradbury, Evans, and Co., 11, Bouverie Street.
1870.

PREFACE.

The writing of prefaces is, for the most part, work thrown away; and
the writing of a preface to a novel is almost always a vain thing.
Nevertheless, I am tempted to prefix a few words to this novel on
its completion, not expecting that many people will read them, but
desirous, in doing so, of defending myself against a charge which may
possibly be made against me by the critics,--as to which I shall be
unwilling to revert after it shall have been preferred.

I have introduced in the Vicar of Bullhampton the character of a girl
whom I will call,--for want of a truer word that shall not in its
truth be offensive,--a castaway. I have endeavoured to endow her with
qualities that may create sympathy, and I have brought her back at
last from degradation at least to decency. I have not married her to
a wealthy lover, and I have endeavoured to explain that though there
was possible to her a way out of perdition, still things could not be
with her as they would have been had she not fallen.

There arises, of course, the question whether a novelist, who
professes to write for the amusement of the young of both sexes,
should allow himself to bring upon h