Title-page
1872
Printed
Cover: 21.3 cm by 12.8 cm (8 ½ by 5 inches)
Charles Lever's The Daltons, or, Three Roads in Life, with military paraphernalia in gilt.
[Click on image to enlarge it.]
Scanned image, sizing, and commentary by Philip V. Allingham.
From the Original Preface (1852, rpt. 1859)
IF the original conception of this tale was owing to the story of an old and valued schoolfellow who took service in Austria, and rose to rank and honors there, all the rest was purely fictitious. My friend had made a deep impression on my mind by his narratives of that strange life, wherein, in the very midst of our modern civilisation, an old-world tradition still has its influence, making the army of to-day the veritable sons and descendants of those who grouped around the bivouac fires in Wallenstein's camp. Of that more than Oriental submission that graduated deference to military rank that chivalrous devotion to the “Kaiser” which enter into the soldier heart of Austria, I have been unable to reproduce any but the very faintest outlines, and yet these were the traits which pervaded all my friend's stories and gave them character and distinctiveness.
Many of the other characters in this tale were drawn from the life, with such changes added and omitted features as might rescue them from any charge of personality. With all my care on this score, one or two have been believed to be recognizable; and if so I have only to hope that I have touched on peculiarities of disposition inoffensively, and only depicted such traits as may “point a moral,” without wounding the possessor.
The last portion of the story includes some scenes from the Italian campaign, which had just come to a close while I was writing. If a better experience of Italy than I then possessed might modify some of the opinions I entertained at that time, and induce me to form some conclusions at least at variance with those I then expressed, I still prefer to leave the whole unaltered, lest in changing I might injure the impression under which the fulness of my once conviction had impelled me to pronounce.
Writing these lines now, while men's hearts are throbbing anxiously for the tidings any day may produce, and when the earth is already tremulous under the march of distant squadrons, I own that even the faint, weak picture of that struggle in this story appeals to myself with a more than common interest. I have no more to add than my grateful acknowledgments to such as still hold me in their favor, and to write myself their devoted servant,
CHARLES LEVER.
From the Second Preface
The theory of animal heat has established the fact that the individual who has absorbed a certain amount of caloric will be able to resist cold longer and better than he who goes into the air without such provision. May there not be something of the same kind in our moral chemistry, and that a stock of latent happiness will serve to ward off the chill approach of adversity long after exposure to the assault; and that the heart, which has drank [sic] freely of bliss, will carry the flame, even after sorrow and suffering have impaired the sense and dulled the enjoyment?
CHARLES LEVER.
Trieste, 1872.
Frontispieces from Various One- and Two-Volume Editions (1852-1882)
Related Material
Bibliography
Brown, John Buchanan. Phiz! Illustrator of Dickens' World. New York: Charles Scribner's, 1978.
Downey, Edmund. Charles Lever: His Life in Letters. 2 vols. London: William Blackwood, 1906.
Fitzpatrick, W. J. The Life of Charles Lever. London: Downey, 1901.
Lester, Valerie Browne. Phiz: The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004.
Lever, Charles. The Daltons or Three Roads in Life. Illustrated by "Phiz" (Hablot Knight Browne). London: Chapman and Hall, two volumes, 1852, rpt. in single volume format, 1859 and 1872.
Lever, Charles James. The Daltons, or, Three Roads in Life. http://www.gutenberg.org//files/32061/32061-h/32061-h.htm
Lever, Charles. The Daltons and A Day's Ride. With illustrations by "Phiz" (Hablot Knight Browne). Vol. VI in Works. New York: P. F. Collier, 1882.
Skinner, Anne Maria. Charles Lever and Ireland. University of Liverpool. PhD dissertation. May 2019.
Stevenson, Lionel. Dr. Quicksilver: The Life of Charles Lever. New York: Russell & Russell, 1939, rpt. 1969.
_______. "The Domestic Scene." The English Novel: A Panorama. Cambridge, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin and Riverside, 1960.
Last modified 22 April 2022