E-text prepared by Ted Garvin, Josephine Paolucci, and the Project
Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
Or, The Naval Officer
by
Contents
Prefatory Note
We do not intend to review our own work; if we did it justice wemight be accused of partiality, and we are not such fools as to abuseit. We leave that to our literary friends who may have so little tasteas not to appreciate its merits. Not that there would be anythingnovel in reviewing our own performances—that we have discovered sincewe have assumed the office of editor; but still it is always done subrosa, whereas in our position we could not deny our situation aseditor and author. Of Peter Simple, therefore, we say nothing, butwe take this opportunity of saying a few words to the public…. TheNaval Officer was our first attempt, and its having been our firstattempt must be offered in extenuation of its many imperfections; itwas written hastily, and before it was complete we were appointed toa ship. We cared much about our ship and little about our book. Thefirst was diligently taken care of by ourselves, the second was leftin the hands of others to get on how it could. Like most bantlings putout to nurse, it did not get on very well. As we happen to be in acommunicative vein, it may be as well to remark that, being written inthe autobiographical style, it was asserted by friends, and believedin general, that it was a history of the author's life. Now, withoutpretending to have been better than we should have been in our earlierdays, we do most solemnly assure the public that had we run the careerof vice of the hero of the Naval Officer, at all events we shouldhave had sufficient sense of shame not to have avowed it. Except thehero and heroine, and those parts of the work which supply theslight plot of it as a novel, the work in itself is materially true,especially in the narrative of sea adventure, most of which did (tothe best of our recollection) occur to the author. We say to the bestof our recollection, as it behoves us to be careful. We have notforgotten the snare in which Chamier found himself by asserting in hispreface that his narrative was fact. In The Naval Officer much goodmaterial was thrown away; but we intend to write it over again someday of these days, and The Naval Officer, when corrected, will beso improved that he may be permitted to stand on the same shelf withPride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility.[A]
[Footnote A: The improvement was never made.—ED.]
"The confounded licking we received for our first attempts in thecritical notices is probably well known to the reader—at all eventswe have not forgotten it. Now, with some, this severe castigation oftheir first offence would have had the effect of their never offendingagain; but we felt that our punishment was rather too severe; itproduced indignation instead of contrition, and we determined to writeagain in spite of all the critics in the universe; and in the duecourse of nine mo