THE MAN-EATERS
AND
OTHER ODD PEOPLE.
Messrs. Fields, Osgood & Co.:—
I accept the terms offered, and hereby concede to you the exclusive right ofpublication, in the United States, of all my juvenile Tales of Adventure, knownas Boys’ Novels.
MEMOIR OF MAYNE REID.
No one who has written books for the young during thepresent century ever had so large a circle of readers asCaptain Mayne Reid, or ever was so well fitted by circumstancesto write the books by which he is chiefly known.His life, which was an adventurous one, was ripened withthe experience of two Continents, and his temperament,which was an ardent one, reflected the traits of two races.Irish by birth, he was American in his sympathies withthe people of the New World, whose acquaintance hemade at an early period, among whom he lived for years,and whose battles he helped to win. He was probablymore familiar with the Southern and Western portion ofthe United States forty years ago than any native-bornAmerican of that time. A curious interest attaches to thelife of Captain Reid, but it is not of the kind that casualbiographers dwell upon. If he had written it himself itwould have charmed thousands of readers, who can nowmerely imagine what it might have been from the glimpsesof it which they obtain in his writings. It was not passedin the fierce li