ABSTRACT
Both in his preface and in the body of his work, Mr. Collins invites the reader to observe what is the object which the author has set before him in composing the series of tales collected under the name of the Queen of Hearts. What Mr. Collins aims at is being a story-teller. He wishes to construct a narrative the effect of which shall be to awake, sustain, and satisfy the interest of the reader. There are plenty of novels written in these days to unfold the philosophy or to instil the instruction which finds favour with the writer. There are novels in which the author attempts to elaborate character, and to show how certain vices or virtues are revealed or fostered by the circumstances in which the actors of the fiction are placed. There are, again, novels intended to describe states of society which have passed away, or ways of life unfamiliar to the English public, or scenery, customs, and institutions foreign to our usual habits of thought. Mr. Collins considers that all these attempts are divergencies from the proper duty of a novelist. A story-teller should have a story to tell, and should tell it. It is his business not to improve or to instruct mankind, but to amuse. Common life is full of strange incidents. If these are related disjointedly and unmethodically, the attention of a reader or hearer is only momentarily arrested. But here lies the field for a novelist’s skill. He can so arrange the story that the interest shall be prolonged. He can devise a number of minute incidents, all converging in a central point. He can bring constantly home to the conviction of his reader that this central point exists, and yet can conceal what it is. He can manage that, when this central point is revealed, all that before seemed obscure shall seem clear, and every main incident shall appear to have occurred independently and naturally, though conducing to the evolution of the final mystery. A story thus becomes a well-managed puzzle. First of all, the narrator has to find the right sort of puzzle to set. It must be something nearly connected with common life, or the final explication will appear forced. At the same time, it must be something removed from every-day experience, or the theatre of action will seem too mean or obscure. Then, when the right species ofpuzzle has been hit on, the storyteller must set it in the right way, using none but legitimate contrivances, and coming to an end when the facts of which he makes use naturally lead him to do so. Mr. Collins asks his readers and critics to observe that this is by no means an easy thing to do, and he claims that he shall have due credit for any success he may have achieved in carrying out his conception of his art.
