Mrs Falchion

Mrs Falchion, entire

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Complete #22 in our series by Gilbert Parker
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Title: Mrs. Falchion, Complete
Author: Gilbert Parker
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MRS. FALCHION
By Gilbert Parker

INTRODUCTION
This novel was written in the days of the three-decker, and it went out
to sea as such. Every novel of mine written until 1893 was published in
two or three volumes, and the sale to the libraries was greater than the
sale to the general public. This book was begun in 1892 at the time
when the Pierre stories were being written, and it was finished in the
summer of 1893. It did not appear serially; indeed, I made no attempt at
serial publication. I had a feeling that as it was to be my first novel, it
should be judged as a whole and taken at a gasp, as it were. I believe
that the reader of Messrs. Methuen & Company was not disposed to
publish the book, but Mr. Methuen himself (or Mr. Stedman as he was
then called) was impressed by it and gave it his friendly confidence. He
was certain that it would arrest the attention of the critics and of the
public, whether it became popular or not. I have not a set of those
original three volumes. I wish I had, because they won for me an
almost unhoped- for pleasure. The 'Daily Chronicle' gave the volumes
over a column of review, and headed the notice, "A Coming Novelist."
The 'Athenaeum' said that 'Mrs. Falchion' was a splendid study of
character; 'The Pall Mall Gazette' said that the writing was as good as
anything that had been done in our time, while at the same time it took
rather a dark view of my future as a novelist, because it said I had not
probed deep enough into the wounds of character which I had inflicted.
The article was written by Mr. George W. Stevens, and he was right in
saying that I had not probed deep enough. Few very young men--and I

was very young then--do probe very deeply. At the appearance of
'When Valmond Came to Pontiac', however, Mr. Stevens came to the
conclusion that my future was assured.
I mention these things because they were burnt into my mind at the
time. 'Mrs. Falchion' was my first real novel, as I have said, though it
had been preceded by a short novel called 'The Chief Factor', since
rescued from publication and never published in book form in England.
I realised when I had written 'Mrs. Falchion' that I had not found my
metier, and I was fearful of complete failure. I had come but a few
years before from the South Seas; I was full of what I had seen and felt;
I was eager to write of it all, and I did write of it; but the thing which
was deeper still in me was the life which 'Pierre and His People', 'The
Seats of the Mighty', 'The Trail of the Sword', 'The Lane That Had no
Turning', and 'The Right of Way' portrayed. That life was destined to
give me an assured place and public, while 'Mrs. Falchion', and the
South Sea stories published in various journals before the time of its
production, and indeed anterior to the writing of the Pierre series, only
assured me attention.
Happily for the book, which has faults of construction, superficialities
as to incident, and with some crudity of plot, it was, in the main, a
study of character. There was focus, there