THE SLAVE OF THE LAMP

BY

HENRY SETON MERRIMAN






PREFACE


Henry Seton Merriman published his first novel, "Young Mistley," in
1888, when he was twenty-six years old. Messrs. Bentley's reader, in his
critique on the book, spoke of its "powerful situations" and
unconventionality of treatment: and, while dwelling at much greater
length on its failings, declared, in effect, its faults to be the right
faults, and added that, if "Young Mistley" was not in itself a good
novel, its author was one who might hereafter certainly write good
novels.

"Young Mistley" was followed in quick succession by "The Phantom
Future," "Suspense," and "Prisoners and Captives." Some years later,
considering them crude and immature works, the author, at some
difficulty and with no little pecuniary loss, withdrew all these four
first books from circulation in England. Their republication in America
he was powerless to prevent. He therefore revised and abbreviated them,
"conscious," as he said himself in a preface, "of a hundred defects