


[Illustration: "She slipped on her knees, and burst into a passionate fit
of weeping."]

Vain Fortune

A Novel

By

George Moore

_With Five Illustrations By__Maurice Greiffenhagen_

New Edition

Completely Revised

London: Walter Scott, Ltd. Paternoster Square

1895

Edinburgh: T. and A. Constable, Printers to Her Majesty




Prefatory Note


I hope it will not seem presumptuous to ask my critics to treat this new
edition of _Vain Fortune_ as a new book: for it is a new book. The first
edition was kindly noticed, but it attracted little attention, and very
rightly, for the story as told therein was thin and insipid; and when
Messrs. Scribner proposed to print the book in America, I stipulated that I
should be allowed to rewrite it. They consented, and I began the story with
Emily Watson, making her the principal character instead of Hubert Price.
Some months after I received a letter from Madam Couperus, offering to
translate the English edition into Dutch. I sent her the American 