Dedication: To A. D. V.-P.
Author's Foreword: When, as in these stories, many places are described or mentioned, it is only right that the author should state whether he has a first-hand knowledge or whether he relies mainly on hearsay or book-say. I would therefore like to state that I know them by having visited them, usually by having lived there for some time....Finally, I ought perhaps to remark that I am an Englishman who spent many years in Australasia, that I am proud to have served with the Australian Expeditionary Force, and that if real events and persons are sometimes mentioned, they are treated without malice or prejudice on the one hand, and without fear or favour on the other.' (pp.7-8). C. D. London, October 1, 1928.
'Perhaps I might mention that in November 1928 appeared my only collection of short stories; as by one Corrie Denison. They are off the beaten track in both matter and manner (only the longest being autobiographical), and not wholly unmeritorious, but they owed their success, - both signed and unsigned copies have long been out of print; and at a slight premium, I believe, - to the fact that, a few months earlier, the Scholartis Press had been praised for its discovery of Norah Hoult.' Eric Partridge, 'Appendix : a bio-bibliographicall note', A Covey of Partridge (1937): 314.
'The veneer of fiction in this collection of short stories is very thin. They are little more than chunks of autobiography written in a very monotonous, flat style.' Times Literary Supplement, (27 December 1928): 1026.
