The Project Gutenberg EBook of Jezebel, by Wilkie Collins

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Title: Jezebel

Author: Wilkie Collins

Posting Date: April 24, 2009 [EBook #3633]
Release Date: January, 2003
First Posted: June 26, 2001
Last Updated: August 26, 2006

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JEZEBEL ***

Produced by James Rusk. HTML version by Al Haines.

JEZEBEL'S DAUGHTER

by

Wilkie Collins

TO ALBERTO CACCIA

Let me begin by informing you, that this new novel does not present the
proposed sequel to my last work of fiction--"The Fallen Leaves."

The first part of that story has, through circumstances connected with
the various forms of publications adopted thus far, addressed itself to a
comparatively limited class of readers in England. When the book is
finally reprinted in its cheapest form--then, and then only, it will
appeal to the great audience of the English people. I am waiting for that
time, to complete my design by writing the second part of "The Fallen
Leaves."

Why?

Your knowledge of English Literature--to which I am indebted for the
first faithful and intelligent translation of my novels into the Italian
language--has long since informed you, that there are certain important
social topics which are held to be forbidden to the English novelist (no
matter how seriously and how delicately he may treat them), by a
narrow-minded minority of readers, and by the critics who flatter their
prejudices. You also know, having done me the honor to read my books,
that I respect my art far too sincerely to permit limits to be wantonly
assigned to it, which are imposed in no other civilized country on the
face of the earth. When my work is undertaken with a pure purpose, I
claim the same liberty which is accorded to a writer in a newspaper, or
to a clergyman in a pulpit; knowing, by previous experience, that the
increase of readers and the lapse of time will assuredly do me justice,
if I have only written well enough to deserve it.

In the prejudiced quarters to which I have alluded, one of the characters
in "The Fallen Leaves" offended susceptibilities of the sort felt by
Tartuffe, when he