



Produced by James Rusk





BASIL

By Wilkie Collins




LETTER OF DEDICATION.

TO CHARLES JAMES WARD, ESQ.

IT has long been one of my pleasantest anticipations to look forward to
the time when I might offer to you, my old and dear friend, some such
acknowledgment of the value I place on your affection for me, and of my
grateful sense of the many acts of kindness by which that affection
has been proved, as I now gladly offer in this place. In dedicating the
present work to you, I fulfil therefore a purpose which, for some time
past, I have sincerely desired to achieve; and, more than that, I gain
for myself the satisfaction of knowing that there is one page, at least,
of my book, on which I shall always look with unalloyed pleasure--the
page that bears your name.

I have founded the main event