--Spoof. A Thousand-Guinea Novel. New! Fascinating!
Perplexing!
CHAPTER I
Readers are requested to note that this novel has taken
our special prize of a cheque for a thousand guineas.
This alone guarantees for all intelligent readers a
palpitating interest in every line of it. Among the
thousands of MSS. which reached us--many of them coming
in carts early in the morning, and moving in a dense
phalanx, indistinguishable from the Covent Garden Market
waggons; others pouring down our coal-chute during the
working hours of the day; and others again being slipped
surreptitiously into our letter-box by pale, timid girls,
scarcely more than children, after nightfall (in fact
many of them came in their night-gowns),--this manuscript
alone was the sole one--in fact the only one--to receive
the prize of a cheque of a thousand guineas. To other
competitors we may have given, inadvertently perhaps, a
bag of sovereigns or a string of pearls, but to this
story alone is awarded the first prize by the unanimous
decision of our judges.
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