Produced by Avinash Kothare, Tom Allen, Juliet Sutherland,
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The following story is founded on fact, everybody about this part of
Canada who is not deaf having heard of the gang at Markham Swamp.
I have no doubt that some of my friends who are in the habit ofconsidering themselves "literary," will speak with despair anddisparagement of myself when they read the title of this book. Theywill call it "blood and thunder," and will see that I am on my way tothe dogs.
Well, these people are my friends after all, and I shall not open aquarrel with them. For they themselves have tempted the public withstupid books and essays; and they failed in finding buyers. Thereforethey have demonstrated for me that a stupid book doesn't pay; and Iwill not, even for my best friend, write anything but what the peoplewill buy from me. I am not a Fellow of the R.S.C., and if I producedanything dreary I could not look for the solace of having thatdiscerning association clap their hands while I read my manuscript.
As to my subject being blood and thunder, as some of the litterateurswill describe it, I have only to say that the author of Hard Cashwrote more than a dozen short stories laid upon lines similar to mine.A young man fighting for a place in literature, and for bread andbutter at the same time, need not blush at being censured for adoptinga literary field in which Charles Reade spent so many years of hislife.
By-and-by, when I drive a gilded chariot, and can afford to wait forbooks with quieter titles and more dramatic worth to bring me theirslow earnings, I shall be presumptuous enough to set such a starbefore my ambition as the masters of English fiction followed.
TORONTO, 1st August, 1886.