Preface

Name: Hard Cash - Preface
Author: Charles Reade

"HARD CASH," like "The Cloister and the Hearth," is a matter-of-fact Romance—that is, a fiction built on truths; and these truths have been gathered by long, severe, systematic labour, from a multitude of volumes, pamphlets, journals, reports, blue-books, manuscript narratives, letters, and living people, whom I have sought out, examined, and cross-examined, to get at the truth on each main topic I have striven to handle.

The madhouse scenes have been picked out by certain disinterested gentlemen, who keep private asylums, and periodicals to puff them; and have been met with bold denials of public facts, and with timid personalities, and a little easy cant about Sensation* Novelists; but in reality those passages have been written on the same system as the nautical, legal, and other scenes: the best evidence has been ransacked; and a large portion of this evidence I shall be happy to show at my house to any brother writer who is disinterested, and really cares enough for truth and humanity to walk or ride a mile in pursuit of them.

CHARLES READE.

6 BOLTON ROW, MAYFAIR, December 5, 1868.

*This slang term is not quite accurate as applied to me. Without sensation there can be no interest: but my plan is to mix a little character and a little philosophy with the sensational element.

Contents:

Related Resources

None available for this document.

Download Options

Title: Hard Cash

Select an option:

*Note: A download may not start for up to 60 seconds.

Email Options

Title: Hard Cash

Select an option:

Email addres:

*Note: It may take up to 60 seconds for for the email to be generated.

Chicago: Charles Reade, "Preface," Hard Cash, ed. Macaulay, G. C. (George Campbell), 1852-1915 and trans. Evans, Sebastian in Hard Cash Original Sources, accessed April 18, 2025, http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=1RBH4STWVH29SYT.

MLA: Reade, Charles. "Preface." Hard Cash, edited by Macaulay, G. C. (George Campbell), 1852-1915, and translated by Evans, Sebastian, in Hard Cash, Original Sources. 18 Apr. 2025. http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=1RBH4STWVH29SYT.

Harvard: Reade, C, 'Preface' in Hard Cash, ed. and trans. . cited in , Hard Cash. Original Sources, retrieved 18 April 2025, from http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=1RBH4STWVH29SYT.