Of the five stories in this volume, The Lagoon, the last in order, is the earliest in date. It is the first short story I ever wrote and marks, in a manner of speaking, the end of my first phase, the Malayan phase with its special subject and its verbal suggestions. Conceived in the same mood which produced Almayer's Folly and An Outcast of the Islands, it is told in the same breath (with what was left of it, that is, after the end of An Outcast), seen with the same vision, rendered in the same method - if such a thing as method did exist then in my conscious relation to this new adventure of writing for print.