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A first-person narrator traces his path from modest childhood through a deliberate turn to criminality, explaining the resentments, ambitions, and calculated choices that enable him to remove obstacles to social advancement. The account mixes episode-driven memoir and ironic social observation as he reflects on conscience, the workings of law, and the hypocrisies of polite society. Through detailed scenes of family life, planning, and consequence, the narrative examines moral rationalization, the mechanics of wrongdoing, and the costs and rewards of ruthless cunning.
This transcription follows the text of the Chatto & Windus edition published in 1907. Three unambiguous misspellings have been corrected (namely, “Halward,” “memorist,” and “possiblity”), but any other seeming errors have been left unchanged.