Produced by David Cortesi, Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net * * * * * TEN THOUSAND A-YEAR. [Illustration: Portrait of the author.] TEN THOUSAND A-YEAR. BY SAMUEL WARREN, F.R.S. VOL. I. BOSTON: LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. 1900. University Press: John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. * * * * * To Emily, A LITTLE BLUE-EYED LAUGHING IMAGE OF PURITY AND HAPPINESS, _THESE VOLUMES ARE INSCRIBED_ AS A SLIGHT MEMORIAL OF A FATHER'S AFFECTION FOR AN ONLY DAUGHTER. _October_, 1841. * * * * * TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE The author provided thirty-three notes to the text. They are indicated by numbers in square brackets, as[12]. The notes themselves are at the end of the document. To find note number 12, search for "Note 12". In this Unicode edition, the oe-ligature (œ, unicode #339) is used at many points, and tow phrases in Greek characters appear in the Notes. All other text is ASCII (ISO-8859-1). Four typographical errors were corrected in transcription: Gamman for Gammon, p. 169; possisible for possible, p. 195; familarly for familiarly, p. 250; and possesssion for possession, p. 402. PUBLISHERS' PREFACE. The fact that a well-printed edition of this notable story has not been in print either in England or America since its original publication in 1841 is a sufficient reason for the present edition. It includes the valuable notes in which the author elucidated the "many legal topics contained in the work, enabling the non-professional reader to understand more easily the somewhat complex and elaborate _plot_ of the story." Of the story itself it is hardly necessary to speak. Always deservedly popular, it has been widely read for nearly fifty years in England and America, has been translated into French and German, and has only required to be presented in a pleasing form, with readable type and good paper, to insure it the circulation which it deserves. Boston, 1889. PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. The Author of this Work begs gratefully to express his conviction that no small share of any success which it may have met with, is attributable to the circumstance of its having had the advantage of an introduction to the public through the medium of _Blackwood's Magazine_--a distinguished periodical, to which he feels it an honor to have been, for a time, a contributor.