The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft, by
George Gissing


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Title: The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft


Author: George Gissing

Release Date: March 27, 2005 [eBook #1463]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)


***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRIVATE PAPERS OF HENRY
RYECROFT***





Transcribed from the 1903 Archibald Constable & Co. edition by David
Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk





THE PRIVATE PAPERS OF HENRY RYECROFT


PREFACE


The name of Henry Ryecroft never became familiar to what is called the
reading public. A year ago obituary paragraphs in the literary papers
gave such account of him as was thought needful: the date and place of
his birth, the names of certain books he had written, an allusion to his
work in the periodicals, the manner of his death. At the time it
sufficed. Even those few who knew the man, and in a measure understood
him, must have felt that his name called for no further celebration; like
other mortals, he had lived and laboured; like other mortals, he had
entered into his rest. To me, however, fell the duty of examining
Ryecroft's papers; and having, in the exercise of my discretion, decided
to print this little volume, I feel that it requires a word or two of
biographical complement, just so much personal detail as may point the
significance of the self-revelation here made.

When first I knew him, Ryecroft had reached his fortieth year; for twenty
years he had lived by the pen. He was a struggling man, beset by poverty
and other circumstances very unpropitious to mental work. Many forms of
literature had he tried; in none had he been conspicuously successful;
yet now and then he had managed