The Mysteries of London, Vol. II [Unabridged & Illustrated] (Valancourt Classics)
Page 137
The one sleeps in an early grave: the other is the heir-apparent to a throne.
Yes: and the prophetic words of the hapless Mary-Anne are fulfilled to the letter; for now in their palace at Montoni, do the hero and heroine of our tale, while retrospecting over all they have seen and all they have passed through, devote many a kind regret to the memory of the departed girl who predicted for them all the happiness which they enjoy!
And that happiness—the world has seen no felicity more perfect.
Adored by a tender wife,—honoured by her parents, on whose brows his valour placed the diadems which they wear,—and almost worshipped by a grateful nation whom his prowess redeemed from slavery,—Richard Markham knows not a single care.
On her side,—wedded to him to whom her young heart gave its virgin love,—proud of a husband whose virtues in peace and whose glory in war have shed undying lustre on the name which he bears,—blessed, too, with a lovely boy, whose mind already develops the reflections of his father’s splendid qualities, and with a charming girl, who promises to be the heiress of the mother’s beauty,—can Isabella be otherwise than happy?
Kind Reader, who have borne with me so long—one word to thee.
If amongst the circle of thy friends, there be any who express an aversion to peruse this work,—fearful from its title or from fugitive report that the mind will be shocked more than it can be improved, or the blush of shame excited on the cheek oftener than the tear of sympathy will be drawn from the eye;—if, in a word, a false fastidiousness should prejudge, from its own supposition or from misrepresentations made to it by others, a book by means of which we have sought to convey many an useful moral and lash many a flagrant abuse,—do you, kind reader, oppose that prejudice, and exclaim—“Peruse, ere you condemn!”
For if, on the one side, we have raked amidst the filth and loathsomeness of society,—have we not, on the other, devoted adequate attention to its bright and glorious phases?
In exposing the hideous deformity of vice, have we not studied to develope the witching beauty of virtue?
Have we not taught, in fine, how the example and the philanthropy of one good man can “save more souls and redeem more sinners than all the Bishops that ever wore lawn-sleeves?”
If, then, the preceding pages be calculated to engender one useful thought—awaken one beneficial sentiment,—the work is not without its value.
If there be any merit in honesty of purpose and integrity of aim,—then is that merit ours.
And if, in addition to considerations of this nature, we may presume that so long as we are enabled to afford entertainment, our labours will be rewarded by the approval of the immense audience to whom we address ourselves,—we may with confidence invite attention to a SECOND SERIES of “THE MYSTERIES OF LONDON.”
GEORGE W. M. REYNOLDS
THE END OF THE FIRST SERIES.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
George W. M. Reynolds was born in 1814 in Sandwich, Kent, to wealthy parents, George and Caroline Reynolds, both of whom died by the time he was a teenager. Although his guardian enrolled him in the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, Reynolds quit school in 1830 and soon left England for France with his younger brother Edward in tow. In France, Reynolds worked in a Paris bookstore, composed his first novel, The Youthful Imposter (1835), and wed Susannah Pierson at the British embassy. After going bankrupt in France, Reynolds returned to England with his family, and by the end of 1837, he was bankrupt in London as well. Unfortunately, this was only the beginning of Reynolds’s financial woes, for he would declare bankruptcy again in 1840 and 1848.
Reynolds was a prolific writer, publishing novels, short stories, and nonfiction articles, some of which were original, some plagiarized. Reynolds’s Pickwick Abroad (1837-38) shamelessly borrowed from Charles Dickens’s Pickwick Papers (1836-37), as did his Master Timothy’s Bookcase (1841-42), which was based on Dickens’s Master Humphrey’s Clock (1839). In 1844, Reynolds began publishing The Mysteries of London, modeled on Les Mystères de Paris by Eugène Sue, in weekly parts. Reynolds’s Mysteries was wildly successful, selling some 40,000-50,000 copies a week and over a million copies within a decade. Reynolds would go on to write over twenty serialized novels, including Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf (1846-47), The Necromancer (1851-52; also available from Valancourt), and a follow-up to The Mysteries of London entitled The Mysteries of the Court of London (1848-56). His oeuvre included historical and Gothic fiction, along with tales of adventure that frequently featured violence, gore, and licentious female characters. Reynolds’s fiction primarily targeted a lower- and middle-class readership and was enormously popular, so popular, in fact, that he outsold his better-known contemporaries Thackeray, Dickens and Trollope and was acknowledged in his obituary in The Bookseller as “the most popular writer of our times”.
In addition to his fiction, Reynolds was also a journalist, as well as a political activist associated with the Chartist and temperance movements. He worked as an editor for the Monthly Magazine and later as editor of the London Journal, where he increased circulation by featuring sensational fiction accompanied by equally sensational woodcuts. However, Reynolds soon had a falling out with the owner, George Stiff, which led him to found his own publication, Reynolds’s Miscellany, in 1846. Reynolds’s Miscellany remained in circulation until 1869 when it merged with Bow Bells. Another Reynolds newspaper, Reynolds’s Weekly Newspaper, founded in 1849, long survived its editor, running until 1969. Reynolds died in 1879.