change it when, double in length, it became a volume called 'A Ladder of
Swords'.

As it originally appeared, I wrote it in the Island of Jersey, out at the
little Bay of Rozel in a house called La Chaire, a few yards away from
the bay itself, and having a pretty garden with a seat at its highest
point, from which, beyond the little bay, the English Channel ran away to
the Atlantic. It was written in complete seclusion. I had no visitors;
there was no one near, indeed, except the landlord of the little hotel in
the bay, and his wife. All through the Island, however, were people whom
I knew, like the Malet de Carterets, the Lemprieres, and old General
Pipon, for whom the Jersey of three hundred years ago was as near as the
Jersey of to-day, so do the Jersiais prize, cultivate, and conserve every
hour of its recorded history.

As the sea opens out to a vessel making between the promontories to the
main, so, while writing this tale which originally was short, the larger
scheme of 'The Battle of the Strong' spread out before me, luring me, as
though in the distance were the Fortunate Isles. Eight years after
'Michel and Angele' was written and first published in 'Harper's Weekly',
I decided to give it the dignity of a full-grown romance. For years I
had felt that it had the essentials for a larger canvas, and at the
earnest solicitation of Messrs. Harper & Brothers I settled to do what
had long been in my mind. The narrative grew as naturally from what it
was to larger stature as anything that had been devised upon a greater
scale at the beginning; and in London town I had the same joy in the
company of Michel and Angele--and a vastly increased joy in the company
of Lempriere, the hulking, joyous giant--as I had years before in Jersey
itself when the story first stirred in my mind and reached my pen.