Most of the tales in this volume were written prior to the publication of "Uncle Silas," which is, perhaps, the novel by which my father is best known. All the stories, with the exception of "The Watcher," were in-cluded in "The Purcell Papers," edited by Mr. Alfred Perceval Graves after my father‟s death, and pub-lished by Messrs. Bentley.It may be of interest to point out that the central idea in the story entitled "Passage in the Secret Histo-ry of an Irish Countess" is embodied in "Uncle Silas."