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L’ouvrage est entièrement numérisé et disponible sur le site : |
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| Dick Diminy — 1854 / COLLINS Charles James, [1854] | |||||||||
The Life and Adventures of Dick Diminy — by C. J. Collins
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COLLINS Charles James
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| Anglais |
« Although the chief incidents in the following tale are connected with the turf,
my object in writing it has not been to address myself exclusively to a class. I have
endeavoured to illustrate a phase of social life, which, I think, has never been attempted
before, but which, I believe, will be interesting to all who desire to study life
and character through the instrumentality of fiction.
It is unfortunately too true, that, in connection with the national sport of the country,
many frauds have been perpetrated. These have left a stain upon that sport which ought
not to attach to it. If a fraud be committed in con nection with the turf, the disgrace,
which attends it is immediately fixed upon the sport itself, and not upon the delinquent
parties who have originated and carried out the wrong. This is manifestly unjust.
Such is not the case in commercial matters; yet there are more frauds carried on in
one year in connection with commercial affairs than have stained the turf for a century.
That some of the characters in the following pages are true to nature, I have in the
course of the monthly issue of the work received some convincing proofs. More than
one letter has been addressed to me from parties, who have been under the impression
that they were the originals of some of the characters herein introduced; and one
individual was so impressed with the truth of his portrait, that he expressed his
willingness liberally to purchase a suppression of his supposed picture.
To these individuals I can only say, that the characters I have taken are those which
I believe represent a class, and are not intended as a portraiture of individuals.
I have endeavoured to tell a simple narrative in a simple way; I have also endeavoured
to avoid exaggeration-an evil which is too prevalent I fear in modern literature of
this class. Modified exaggeration, if I may use such a phrase, is necessary perhaps
to make fiction more palatable; but when that exaggeration runs into caricature, the
power which the fiction might otherwise possess is with the judicious lost.
My hope is that I may be found to have traversed the happy medium. » Présentation
de l’éditeur (1854)