It was much to be desired that this novel of mine should be a success. Even my wife’s humorous contentment with poverty, which has always been a saving grace in my life, did not eliminate the need of a certain amount of ready money. _The Street of Adventure_, my most successful novel, cost me more than I earned. In the first place, it narrowly escaped total oblivion, which would have saved me great anxiety and considerable expense. After leaving the coast-guard’s cottage at Littlehampton, with my manuscript complete--150,000 words in one month--I had to change trains at Guildford to get to London from some other place. My thoughts were so busy with the story I had written, and with the fortune that awaited me by its success, that I left the manuscript on the mantelpiece in the waiting room of Guildford Station, and did not discover my loss until I had been in London some hours. It seemed--for five minutes of despair--like the loss of my soul. Never should I have had the courage to rewrite that novel which had cost so much labor and so much nervous emotion. Despairingly I telegraphed to the station master, and my joy was great when, two hours later, I received his answer: “Papers found.” Little did I then know that if he had used them to brighten his fire I should have been saved sleepless nights and unpleasant apprehensions.
It was accepted and published by William Heinemann, on a royalty basis, and it was gloriously reviewed. But almost immediately I received a writ of libel from one of my friends and colleagues on the late _Tribune_, and sinister rumors reached me that Franklin Thomasson, the proprietor, and six other members of the staff were consulting their solicitors on the advisability of taking action against me. I saw ruin staring me in the face. My fanciful narrative had not disguised carefully enough the actuality of the _Tribune_ and its staff. My fancy portraits and amiable caricatures had been identified, and could not be denied. Fortunately only one writ was actually presented and proceeded with, against myself and Heinemann, but the book was withdrawn from circulation at a time when the reviews were giving it columns of publicity, and it was killed stone dead--though later it had a merry resurrection.