Cumners Son and Other South Sea Folk

Cumner & South Sea Folk, by G.
Parker, Entire

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Title: Cumner & South Sea Folk, Complete
Author: Gilbert Parker
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CUMNER'S SON AND OTHER SOUTH SEA FOLK, Complete
by Gilbert Parker

CONTENTS
Volume 1. CUMNER'S SON
Volume 2. THE HIGH COURT OF BUDGERY-GAR AN EPIC IN
YELLOW DIBBS, R.N. A LITTLE MASQUERADE DERELICT
OLD ROSES MY WIFE'S LOVERS THE STRANGERS' HUT
Volume 3. THE PLANTER'S WIFE BARBARA GOLDING THE
LONE CORVETTE
Volume 4. A SABLE SPARTAN A VULGAR FRACTION HOW
PANGO WANGO WAS ANNEXED AN AMIABLE REVENGE THE
BLIND BEGGAR AND THE LITTLE RED PEG A FRIEND OF THE
COMMUNE

Volume 5. A PAGAN OF THE SOUTH

INTRODUCTION
In a Foreword to Donovan Pasha, published in 1902, I used the
following words:
"It is now twelve years since I began giving to the public tales of life in
lands well known to me. The first of them were drawn from Australia
and the islands of the southern Pacific, where I had lived and roamed in
the middle and late eighties. . . . Those tales of the Far South were
given out with some prodigality. They did not appear in book form,
however; for at the time I was sending out these antipodean sketches I
was also writing--far from the scenes where they were laid--a series of
Canadian tales, many of which appeared in the 'Independent' of New
York, in the 'National Observer', edited by Mr. Henley, and in the
'Illustrated London News'. On the suggestion of my friend Mr. Henley,
the Canadian tales, Pierre and His People, were published first; with the
result that the stories of the southern hemisphere were withheld from
publication, though they have been privately printed and duly
copyrighted. Some day I may send them forth, but meanwhile I am
content to keep them in my care."
These stories made the collection published eventually under the title of
Cumner's Son, in 1910. They were thus kept for nearly twenty years
without being given to the public in book form. In 1910 I decided,
however, that they should go out and find their place with my readers.
The first story in the book, Cumner's Son, which represents about four
times the length of an ordinary short story, was published in Harper's
Weekly, midway between 1890 and 1900. All the earlier stories
belonged to 1890, 1891, 1892, and 1893. The first of these to be
published was 'A Sable Spartan', 'An Amiable Revenge', 'A Vulgar
Fraction', and 'How Pango Wango Was Annexed'. They were written
before the Pierre series, and were instantly accepted by Mr. Frederick
Greenwood, that great journalistic figure of whom the British public
still takes note, and for whom it has an admiring memory, because of

his rare gifts as an editor and publicist, and by a political section of the
public, because Mr. Greenwood recommended to Disraeli the purchase
of the Suez Canal shares. Seventeen years after publishing these stories
I had occasion to write to Frederick Greenwood, and in my letter I said:
"I can never forget that you gave me a leg up in my first struggle for
recognition in the literary world." His reply was characteristic; it was in
keeping with the modest, magnanimous nature of the man. He said: "I
cannot remember that there was any day when you required a leg up."
While still contributing to the 'Anti-Jacobin', which had a short life and
not a very merry one, I turned my attention to a weekly called 'The