Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Keren Vergon, Charlie
Kirschner, and Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders
PETER IBBETSON
by George du Maurier
With an Introduction by His Cousin Lady **** ("Madge Plunket")
Edited and Illustrated by George Du Maurier
Part One
INTRODUCTION
The writer of this singular autobiography was my cousin, who died atthe ——- Criminal Lunatic Asylum, of which he had been an inmatethree years.
He had been removed thither after a sudden and violent attack ofhomicidal mania (which fortunately led to no serious consequences),from ——- Jail, where he had spent twenty-five years, having beencondemned to penal servitude for life, for the murder of —— ——,his relative.
He had been originally sentenced to death.
It was at —— Lunatic Asylum that he wrote these memoirs, and I receivedthe MS. soon after his decease, with the most touching letter, appealingto our early friendship, and appointing me his literary executrix.
It was his wish that the story of his life should be published just ashe had written it.
I have found it unadvisable to do this. It would revive, to no usefulpurpose, an old scandal, long buried and forgotten, and thereby givepain or annoyance to people who are still alive.
Nor does his memory require rehabilitation among those who knew him, orknew anything of him—the only people really concerned. His dreadfuldeed has long been condoned by all (and they are many) who knew theprovocation he had received and the character of the man who hadprovoked him.
On mature consideration, and with advice, I resolved (in order that hisdying wishes should not be frustrated altogether) to publish the memoirwith certain alterations and emendations.
I have nearly everywhere changed the names of people and places;suppressed certain details, and omitted some passages of his life (mostof the story of his school-days, for instance, and that of his briefcareer as a private in the Horse Guards) lest they should too easilylead to the identification and annoyance of people still alive, for heis strongly personal at times, and perhaps not always just; and someother events I have carefully paraphrased (notably his trial at the OldBailey), and given for them as careful an equivalent as I could managewithout too great a loss of verisimilitude.
I may as well state at once that, allowing for these alterations, everyincident of his natural life as described by himself is absolutelytrue, to the minutest detail, as I have been able to ascertain.
For the early part of it—the life at Passy he describes with suchaffection—I can vouch personally; I am the Cousin "Madge" to whom heonce or twice refers.
I well remember the genial abode where he lived with his parents (mydear uncle and aunt); and the lovely "Madame Seraskier," and her husbandand daughter, and their house, "Parva sed Apta," and "Major Duquesnois,"and the rest.
And although I have never seen him since he was twelve years old, whenhis parents died and he went to London (as most of my life has beenspent abroad), I received occasional letters from him.
I have also been able to obtain much information about him from others,especially from a relative of the late "Mr. and Mrs. Lintot," who knewhim well, and from several officers in his regiment who remembered him;also from the "Vicar's daughter," whom he met at "