The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Giant's Robe, by F. Anstey

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Title: The Giant's Robe

Author: F. Anstey

Release Date: December 12, 2008 [EBook #27507]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Transcriber's Note:

Parochial, older style and alternative spelling
has been left as it appears in the original.

THE
GIANT'S ROBE
BY
F. ANSTEY

AUTHOR OF 'VICE-VERSA'

'Now does he feel his title
Hang loose about him, like a giant's robe
Upon a dwarfish thief'--_Macbeth_

_THIRD EDITION_

LONDON
SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE
1884

[_All rights reserved_]

PREFACE.

It has been my intention from the first to take this opportunity of
stating that, if I am indebted to any previous work for the central
idea of a stolen manuscript, such obligation should be ascribed to a
short tale, published some time ago in one of the Christmas
numbers--the only story upon the subject which I have read at present.

It was the story of a German student who, having found in the library
of his university an old scientific manuscript, by a writer long since
dead and forgotten, produced it as his own; and it is so probable that
the recollection of this incident became quite unconsciously the germ
of the present book that, although the matter is not of general
importance, I feel it only fair to mention it here.

I trust, nevertheless, that it is not necessary to insist upon any
claim to the average degree of originality; for if the book does not
bear the traces of honest and independent work, that is a defect which
is scarcely likely to be removed by the most eloquent and
argumentative of prefaces.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER PAGE

I. AN INTERCESSOR 1
II. A LAST WALK