HOGHTON TOWER

EAGLE CRAG, VALE OF TODMORDEN

LATHOM HOUSE

SOUTH PORT

INCE-HALL, NEAR WIGAN

CLITHEROE CASTLE

ADVERTISEMENT TO THE FIFTH EDITION.

The Fourth Edition of the “Traditions of Lancashire” was published five years ago, and the whole of the impression was ordered from the publishers before it had left the printers’ hands.  Owing to the difficulty in obtaining copies, it has been suggested that a re-issue, in a cheap form, is a desideratum, and the present volumes are the result.  This is the only Complete Edition (except the Fourth, from which it is an unabridged reprint), of Roby’s Traditions—­several Legendary Tales being incorporated which were not included in any of the earlier copies of the work.

November 1871.

THE PUBLISHERS’ PREFACE TO FOURTH EDITION.

Roby’s “Traditions of Lancashire” having long been out of print—­stray copies commanding high prices—­it has been determined to republish the whole in a more compact and less costly form.  This, the fourth and the only complete edition, includes the First Series of twenty tales, published in two volumes (1829, demy 8vo, L2, 2s.; royal 8vo, with proofs and etchings, L4, 4s.); the Second Series, also of twenty tales, in two volumes (1831, 8vo, L2, 2s., &c.); and three additional stories from his Legendary and Poetical Remains, first published after his death (1854, post 8vo, 10s. 6d.)[1] In the two volumes now presented the reader will possess not only the whole of the contents of both series, in four volumes, at one-fourth of the price of the original publication, but also three additional stories from the posthumous volume, with a memoir, a portrait, &c.

From deference to a strongly-expressed feeling that the work should be printed without any abridgment, omission, or alteration, and the text preserved in its full integrity, it has been decided to reprint it entire; and consequently various inaccuracies in the original editions have been left untouched.  Two or three of the most important may be corrected here.

In the tale of “The Dead Man’s Hand,” Mr Roby seems to have been led by false information into some errors reflecting on the character and memory of a devout and devoted Roman Catholic priest, known as Father Arrowsmith.  Mr Roby states that he was executed at Lancaster “in the reign of William iii.;” that “when about to suffer he desired his right hand might be cut off, assuring the bystanders that it would have power to work miraculous cures on those who had faith to believe in its efficacy,” and, denying that Father Arrowsmith suffered on account of religion, Mr Roby adds that “having been found guilty of a misdemeanour, in all probability this story of his martyrdom and miraculous attestation to the truth of the cause for which he suffered, was contrived for the purpose of preventing any scandal that might have come upon the Church through the delinquency of an unworthy member.”