ERNEST MALTRAVERS

BY EDWARD BULWER LYTTON
(Lord Lytton)



DEDICATION:

TO
THE GREAT GERMAN PEOPLE,
A race of thinkers and of critics;
A foreign but familiar audience,
Profound in judgment, candid in reproof, generous in appreciation,
This work is dedicated
By an English Author.



PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1840.

HOWEVER numerous the works of fiction with which, my dear Reader, I have
trespassed on your attention, I leave published but three, of any
account, in which the plot has been cast amidst the events, and coloured
by the manner, of our own times. The first of these, /Pelham/, composed
when I was little more than a boy, has the faults, and perhaps the
merits, natural to a very early age,--when the novelty itself of life
quickens the observation,--when we see distinctly, and represent
vividly, what lies upon the surface of the world,--and when, half
sympathising with the follies we satirise, there is a gusto in our