page viii

Publisher's Note

George Chamier'sA South-Sea Siren, published in 1895, continues the story of Richard Raleigh, the central character of Chamier's earlier novel, Philosopher Dick, of 1891, and re-introduces several characters from that book. Philosopher Dick, while in several ways an interesting work for the literary historian, is a very lengthy novel, heavily laden with philosophical disquisitions and digressions, and much more clumsily constructed than the later work. A South-Sea Siren, also, can be read as an independent and self-contained novel. It is because of these considerations that the University of Auckland has decided to reprint A South-Sea Siren in preference to Philosopher Dick, believing it to be a better novel and much more likely to be in tune with contemporary taste.