Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England Valerie, by Captain Marryat. ________________________________________________________________________ This book was the last one that Marryat was working on in his last days. It is unusual for him in that the story concerned the life of a lady, whereas he normally wrote about the rough-and-tumble of life aboard ship. There is a preface which explains more about the way in which this book was conceived and written. It was completed by someone whom I think may well have been Marryat's wife. There are some interesting episodes, particularly the way in which the young Lionel is raised from being a junior servant to regain an estate which is rightfully his. What is not so easy to cope with these days is the quantity of reported speech in the last few chapters. But try it, and see how you get on. ________________________________________________________________________ VALERIE, BY CAPTAIN MARRYAT. PREFACE. On August 10, 1845, Marryat wrote to Mrs S., a lady for whom, to the time of his death, he retained the highest sentiments of friendship and esteem:-- "I really wish you would write your confessions, I will publish them. I have a beautiful opening in some memoranda I have made of the early life of a Frenchwoman, that is, up to the age of seventeen, when she is cast adrift upon the world, and I would work it all up together. Let us commence, and divide the tin; it is better than doing nothing. I have been helping Ainsworth in the _New Monthly_, and I told him that I had commenced a work called _Mademoiselle Virginie_, which he might perhaps have. Without my knowing it, he has announced its coming forth; but it does not follow that he is to have it, nevertheless, and indeed he now wishes me to continue one" (_The Privateersman_) "that I have already begun in the magazine." However, Mrs S., with whom at one time Washington Irving also wished to collaborate, declined the offer; and _Mademoiselle Virginie_ was ultimately published in the _New Monthly_ under the title of _Valerie_. The first eleven chapters appeared in the magazine 1846, 1847, and the remaining pages were added--according to _The Life and Letters of Captain Marryat_--by another hand, when it came out in book form. There are two special features in _Valerie_, beyond its actual merits, that inevitably excite our attention. It is Marryat's last work, and the only one in which the interest centres entirely on women. For this reason, and from the eighteenth century flavour in some of its characters, the book inevitably recalls Miss Burney and her little-read _The Wanderer_, in which, as in _Valerie_, a proud and sensitive girl is thrown on the world, and discovers--by bitter experience as governess, companion, and music mistress--the sneer that lurks beneath the smile of fashion and prosperity.