Publisher's Synopsis
This is a 1900 reprint from The Holly-Tree Inn and Other Reprinted Pieces collection of short stories, published as the second volume of A Child's History of England and Miscellaneous Pieces. The Holly-Tree Inn was originally published in the Christmas 1855 edition of Household Words. There is some evidence that Dickens only wrote three of the sections and the framing story; the other sections are purportedly attributed as follows: ""The Ostler"", Wilkie Collins; ""The Landlord"", William Howitt; ""The Barmaid"" Adelaide Anne Procter; ""The Poor Pensioner"", Holme Lee. I have kept one secret in the course of my life. I am a bashful man. Nobody would suppose it, nobody ever does suppose it, nobody ever did suppose it, but I am naturally a bashful man. This is the secret which I have never breathed until now. I might greatly move the reader by some account of the innumerable places I have not been to, the innumerable people I have not called upon or received, the innumerable social evasions I have been guilty of, solely because I am by original constitution and character a bashful man. But I will leave the reader unmoved, and proceed with the object before me. That object is to give a plain account of my travels and discoveries in the Holly-Tree Inn; in which place of good entertainment for man and beast I was once snowed up.
