THE LAST GALLEY.

IMPRESSIONS AND TALES

Arthur Conan Doyle.



PREFACE



I have written "Impressions and Tales" upon the title-page of this
volume, because I have included within the same cover two styles of work
which present an essential difference.

The second half of the collection consists of eight stories, which
explain themselves.

The first half is made up of a series of pictures of the past which
maybe regarded as trial flights towards a larger ideal which I have long
had in my mind. It has seemed to me that there is a region between
actual story and actual history which has never been adequately
exploited. I could imagine, for example, a work dealing with some great
historical epoch, and finding its interest not in the happenings to
particular individuals, their adventures and their loves, but in the
fascination of the actual facts of history themselves. These facts
might be coloured with the glamour which the writer of fiction can give,
and fictitious characters and conversations might illustrate them; but
none the less the actual drama of history and not the drama of invention