which the most careful revision cannot eliminate." He was perhaps then,
as he was ever, too severe a critic of his own works. But though these
four early books have, added to youthful failings, the youthful merits
of freshness, vigour and imagination, their author was undoubtedly right
to suppress them. By writing them he learnt, it is true, the technique
of his art: but no author wishes--or no author should wish--to give his
copy-books to the world. It is as well then--it is certainly as he
himself desired--that these four books do not form part of the present
edition. It may, however, be noted that both "Young Mistley" and
"Prisoners and Captives" dealt, as did "The Sowers" hereafter, with
Russian subjects: "Suspense" is the story of a war-correspondent in the
Russo-Turkish War of 1877: and "The Phantom Future" is the only novel of
Merriman's in which the scene is laid entirely in his own country.

In 1892 he produced "The Slave of the Lamp," which had run serially
through the _Cornhill Magazine_, then under the editorship of Mr.
James Payn.

To Mr. Payn, Merriman always felt that he owed a debt of gratitude for
much shrewd and kindly advice and encouragement. But one item of that
advice he neglected with, as Mr. Payn always generously owned, great
advantage. Mr. Payn believed that the insular nature of the ordinary
Briton made it, as a general rule, highly undesirable that the scene of
any novel should be laid outside the British Isles.

After 1892 all Merriman's books, with the single exception of "Flotsam,"
which appeared serially in _Longman's Magazine_, and was, at first,
produced in book form by Messrs. Longman, were published by the firm of
Messrs. Smith, Elder, & Co.