Photograph of J. M. Barrie
THE NOVELS, TALES AND SKETCHES
OF J. M. BARRIE
BETTER DEAD
[Transcriber's note: This volume from which this e-book was createdcontained originally the two books, "Auld Licht Idylls" and "BetterDead." The Introduction (below) discusses both books.]
PUBLISHED IN NEW YORK BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1896
AUTHOR'S EDITION
Copyright, 1896, by CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS.
TO
FREDERICK GREENWOOD
INTRODUCTION
This is the only American edition of my books produced with mysanction, and I have special reasons for thanking Messrs. Scribner forits publication; they let it be seen, by this edition, what are mybooks, for I know not how many volumes purporting to be by me, are incirculation in America which are no books of mine. I have seen severalof these, bearing such titles as "Two of Them," "An Auld Licht Manse,""A Tillyloss Scandal," and some of them announce themselves as author'seditions, or published by arrangement with the author. They consist ofscraps collected and published without my knowledge, and I entirelydisown them. I have written no books save those that appear in thisedition.
I am asked to write a few lines on the front page of each of thesevolumes, to say something, as I take it, about how they came intobeing. Well, they were written mainly to please one woman who is nowdead, but as I am writing a little book about my mother I shall say nomore of her here.
Many of the chapters in "Auld Licht Idylls" first appeared in adifferent form in the St. James's Gazette, and there is little doubtthat they would never have appeared anywhere but for the encouragementgiven to me by the editor of that paper. It was pressure from him thatinduced me to write a second "Idyll" and a third after I thought thefirst completed the picture, he set me thinking seriously of thesepeople, and though he knew nothing of them himself, may be said to haveled me back to them. It seems odd, and yet I am not the first nor thefiftieth who has left Thrums at sunrise to seek the life-work that wasall the time awaiting him at home. And we seldom sally forth a secondtime. I had always meant to be a novelist, but London, I thought, wasthe quarry.
For long I had an uneasy feeling that no one save the editor read mycontributions, for I was leading a lonely life in London, and notanother editor could I find in the land willing to print the Scotchdialect. The magazines, Scotch and English, would have nothing to sayto me—I think I tried them all with "The Courting of T'nowhead'sBell," but it never found shelter until it got within book-covers. Intime, however, I found another paper, the British Weekly, with aneditor as bold as my first (or shall we say he suffered from the sameinfirmity?). He revived my drooping hopes, and I was again able toturn to the only kind of literary work I now seemed to have muchinterest in