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005 - Chapter II The Novelists Part 2 · Victorian Literature

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Speaker 1: Chapter two, Part two of Victorian Literature. This is a
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Speaker 1: libovox recording. All libervox accordings are in a public domain.
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Speaker 1: For more information at the volunteer please visit libovox dot org.
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Speaker 1: Victorian Literature by Clement Chater. Chapter two, The Novelists, Part two.
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Speaker 1: Henry Kingsley eighteen thirty to eighteen seventy six, a younger
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Speaker 1: brother of Charles, wrote many novels and romances, three of
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Speaker 1: them memorable. Geoffrey Hamlen as popular as the best novel
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Speaker 1: of Australian life to Australia. He had begun to make
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Speaker 1: his fortune at the Diggings. He did not make a fortune,
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Speaker 1: but joined the Colonial Mounted Police instead. Compelled by his
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Speaker 1: office to attend an execution, he threw up the post
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Speaker 1: in disgust and returned to England to find his brother
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Speaker 1: installed as Vicar of Eversleigh and on the high road
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Speaker 1: to fame. Little wondered that he attempted to emulate him,
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Speaker 1: and he succeeded. Never surely as literature produced two brothers
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Speaker 1: so remarkable and at the same time so different. Both
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Speaker 1: gave us in a chattic heroes and love manliness. In
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Speaker 1: Charles Kingsley however, the novelist was always largely subordinated to
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Speaker 1: the preacher. In Henry, there was nothing of the preacher whatever.
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Speaker 1: Jeffrey Hamlin, Ravenshaw, and the Hillyars and the Burtons are
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Speaker 1: all forcible, effective works, and they have secured generous praise
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Speaker 1: and appreciation from many a literary colleague. But Henry was
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Speaker 1: a bit of a never do well, and so his
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Speaker 1: personality has been carefully screened from the public. His name
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Speaker 1: is not even mentioned in Charles Kingsley's biography. Sir Edwin Arnold, however,
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Speaker 1: who knew him at Oxford, and missus Thackeray Ritchie, who
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Speaker 1: knew him towards the end of his life, testified to
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Speaker 1: certain delightful qualities of mind and heart which peculiarly appealed
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Speaker 1: to them. A writer not less successful than Charles Kingsley,
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Speaker 1: but in no way comparable as a man, was Edward
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Speaker 1: Bullerllitton eighteen o three to eighteen seventy three, Brenditton, who
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Speaker 1: was born in London and created no small sensation in
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Speaker 1: eighteen twenty eight by the publication of Pelham. This was
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Speaker 1: followed by a long list of novels of infinite variety,
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Speaker 1: some dealt with the Briton natural like sonony, and others
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Speaker 1: with history, psychology and ethics. Of these, the most popular
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Speaker 1: were doubtless the historical herald Rienzi, The Last of the Barons,
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Speaker 1: and The Last Days of Pompeii, which still hold their
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Speaker 1: own with the younger generation. The thoughtful men of to
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Speaker 1: day do not, however, read the Caxtons as they did
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Speaker 1: in the sixties and seventies. Lytton was one of the
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Speaker 1: cleverest men of his age, using the word in no
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Speaker 1: friendly sense. He was a clever novelist, a clever dramatist.
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Speaker 1: His Comedy of Money and his strategies Richelieu and The
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Speaker 1: Lady of Lions still hold the stage. And a clever
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Speaker 1: parliamentary debater. Another writer with higher claims to consideration than
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Speaker 1: those of literature was Benjamin Disraeli eighteen o four to
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Speaker 1: eighteen eighty one, Earl of Beaconsfield. Disraeli entered life under
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Speaker 1: conditions peculiarly favorable to a successful literary career. His father,
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Speaker 1: Isaac Disraeli, was an enthusiastic bookworm whose curiosities of literature
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Speaker 1: and other books, and an inexhaustible mind of anecdote on
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Speaker 1: the quarrels and calamities of authors. The young Disraeli wrote
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Speaker 1: Vivian Cray in eighteen twenty seven. Following this very successful
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Speaker 1: effort with the young Duke Venetia, Henrietta Temple and other
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Speaker 1: noble in eighteen thirty seven he was returned to Parliament
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Speaker 1: as Member of Maidstone. His career as an orator and
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Speaker 1: statesman does not concern us here, suffice to say that
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Speaker 1: of his many later novels, conningsby Tangred and Sybil are
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Speaker 1: by farther ablers than most brilliant, and that Sybil was
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Speaker 1: an effective exposure of many abuses in the relations of
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Speaker 1: capital to labour. In addition to his work as a novelist,
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Speaker 1: Lord Beaconsfield wrote an able biography of his friend and colleague,
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Speaker 1: Lord George Bentinck. One of the most successful of the
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Speaker 1: greater novelists of the reign was Charles Reed eighteen fourteen
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Speaker 1: to eighteen eighty four, who first became famous by pack
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Speaker 1: Woffington in eighteen fifty two. The Cloister and the Hearth
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Speaker 1: was published in eighteen sixty one, and Griffith Gaunt in
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Speaker 1: eighteen sixty six. Several of his later novels were written
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Speaker 1: with a purpose. In Hard Cash, he drew attention to
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Speaker 1: the abuses of private lunatic asylums. In Foul Play, he
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Speaker 1: aroused public interest in the iniquities of shipnackers. In Put
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Speaker 1: Yourself in His Place he attacked trades unions, and in
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Speaker 1: Never Too Late to Mend he exposed some of the
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Speaker 1: abuses of our prison system as it existed at that time.
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Speaker 1: Reed was also an industrious dramatist. Masks and Faces and
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Speaker 1: Drink are among his most popular plays. Of all his books,
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Speaker 1: The Cloister and the Hearth is the best and also
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Speaker 1: the most widely read. It has for its hero, the
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Speaker 1: father of Erasmus. Those who, in days to come we
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Speaker 1: want to know what provincial life was really like in
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Speaker 1: England in early Victorian times will inquire for the novels
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Speaker 1: of Anthony Drolop eighteen fifteen to eighty eighty two. Barchester Towers,
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Speaker 1: Framely Parsonage and Doctor Thorne are the most popular of
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Speaker 1: a serious of tales, in all of which the country
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Speaker 1: life of England, its clergy and squire archie are portrait.
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Speaker 1: Trollop wrote on many subjects. His Life of Cicero secured
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Speaker 1: the commendation of Professor Freeman and his biography of Thackeray,
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Speaker 1: though Autius Light is the best book about the author
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Speaker 1: of Vanity Fair that has so far been given us.
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Speaker 1: Another novelist of about equal status with Trollop in mid
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Speaker 1: Victorian fiction is George John White Melville eighteen twenty one
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Speaker 1: to eighteen seventy eight. Major White Melville is a novelist
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Speaker 1: of all lovers of the hunting field, and strangely enough,
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Speaker 1: he fell a victim to the very sport which he
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Speaker 1: had done so much to picture. He was killed by
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Speaker 1: a fall from his horse. White Melville's hunting novels include
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Speaker 1: cater Falto and Black but Conley. He also wrote historical novels,
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Speaker 1: of which The Queen's Mary's and The Gladiators were the
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Speaker 1: most popular, and he had a pretty gift of verse.
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Speaker 1: Literature has rarely produced a more picturesque figure than Robert
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Speaker 1: Louis Stevenson eighteen fifty to eighteen ninety four. The son
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Speaker 1: of a famous Scottish engineer, he was destined, like his
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Speaker 1: great countryman, Sir Walter Scott, for a writership to the Signet.
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Speaker 1: He took, however, to literature instead, and died at forty
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Speaker 1: four in Samoa, where he had gone for his health.
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Speaker 1: After remarkable literary achievement, with his style not always rigidly grammatical,
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Speaker 1: but always impressive and distinguished, he is shown in many
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Speaker 1: branches of literary work. He wrote travel pictures like with
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Speaker 1: a Donkey in this evants which were incomparably superior to
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Speaker 1: those of any contemporary. His plays, written in collaboration with
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Speaker 1: mister W. E. Henley, had a power of their own,
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Speaker 1: and one of them, Paul Austin, although not accepted by
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Speaker 1: the public, is probably the greatest contribution to the drama
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Speaker 1: of the era. As a critic of life and of books,
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Speaker 1: Stevenson has also an honorable place. I know of no
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Speaker 1: better treatment of the one than Neginebus Puerisque, or of
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Speaker 1: the other than some aspects of Robert Burns. He has
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Speaker 1: given abundant pleasure to children by a child's Garden of verses,
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Speaker 1: and in underwoods he has scarcely less successfully appealed to
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Speaker 1: their elders. It is as a novelist, however, that Stevenson
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Speaker 1: fills the largest place. He is the inheritor of the
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Speaker 1: traditions of scott with the world pain of his own epoch.
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Speaker 1: Superadded man and boys alike have found Treasure Island absorbing,
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Speaker 1: while men have also pondered over the widely different powers
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Speaker 1: which are displayed in the New Arabian Nights. And the
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Speaker 1: Master of Balantrey, Prince Otto and Saint Ives, Doctor Jackal
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Speaker 1: and Mister Hyde is a parable which has thrilled us. All.
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Speaker 1: Stevenson delighted to call mister George Meredith his master, and
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Speaker 1: the two men were friends of years. George Meredith eighteen
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Speaker 1: twenty eight nineteen o nine began his literary career in
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Speaker 1: eighteen fifty one with a volume of poems, one of
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Speaker 1: which Love in a Valley, is still an unqualified joy
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Speaker 1: to all who read it. Mister Meredith has published several
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Speaker 1: volumes of poems since then, and all of them have
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Speaker 1: their loyal admirers. But it is as a novelist that
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Speaker 1: the world at large appraises him. His concentrated thought and
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Speaker 1: vivid passion have gained for him the title of the
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Speaker 1: Browning of novelists. Each of his books, in turn, has
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Speaker 1: had its ardent partisans among cultivated and thoughtful readers. The
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Speaker 1: Shaving of Jackpat appeared in eighteen fifty six, and Arena
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Speaker 1: in eighteen fifty seven. The Ordeal of Richard Feverel, which
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Speaker 1: appeared in eighteen fifty nine, is by many considered Meredith's
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Speaker 1: best novel. It treats with subtle humor and profound philosophical
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Speaker 1: insight of the problem of youth's education, and is full
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Speaker 1: of truth to life. Feverel was followed by even Herrington
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Speaker 1: eighteen sixty one, while Roodelph Leming eighteen sixty five, The
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Speaker 1: Adventures of Harry Richmond eighteen seventy one, Beaucham's Career eighteen
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Speaker 1: seventy six, Degoist eighteen seventy nine, The Tragic Comedians eighteen
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Speaker 1: eighty one, and Diana of the Crossways eighteen eighty five
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Speaker 1: have each of them abundance of readers. Merely to enumerate
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Speaker 1: George Meredith's novels is to call to the memory of
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Speaker 1: all who have read them, a widening of mental and
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Speaker 1: moral vision, the rich wain of poetry running through the books.
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Speaker 1: Their humor and imagination placed their author in the very
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Speaker 1: front rank of English novelists. I should never forgive myself,
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Speaker 1: said Robert Louis Divinson. If I forgot the Egoist, which
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Speaker 1: of all the novels I've read, and I have read
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Speaker 1: thousands stands in a place by itself. I have read
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Speaker 1: The Egoist five or six times, and I mean to
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Speaker 1: read it again. Others have spoken with eco enthusiasm of
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Speaker 1: Sandra Belloni, with its sweet singer Emilia, others of Beauchamp's career,
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Speaker 1: with its aristocratic radical now generally understood to have been
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Speaker 1: intended for Admiral Maxell. Mister Meredith dedicated this volume of
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Speaker 1: poems of eighteen fifty one to Thomas Love Peacock seventeen
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Speaker 1: eighty five to eighteen sixty six, who, perhaps more than
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Speaker 1: any other writer, influenced his own style. Peacock was born
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Speaker 1: at Weymouth, and he was mainly self educated. In eighteen
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Speaker 1: o four and eighteen o six he published two small
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Speaker 1: volumes of poetry, The Monks of Saint Mark and Palmyra.
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Speaker 1: In eighteen twelve he became a quaint with Schaley, and
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Speaker 1: the two were intimate at Great Marlowe, where Peacock lived
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Speaker 1: in eighteen fifteen and later. Peacock's novels Headlong Hall eighteen
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Speaker 1: sixteen to eighteen seventeen, Melanchourt eighteen seventeen and Nightmare Abbey
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Speaker 1: eighteen eighteen, which have been two or three times reprinted
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Speaker 1: within the last five or six years, gained no commensurate
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Speaker 1: attention on their appearance, although one of them was translated
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Speaker 1: into French. In eighteen nineteen. Peacock became a clerk in
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Speaker 1: the India House and married a Welsh girl, Chanegriff Maid
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Speaker 1: Marian appeared in eighteen twenty two, Grotted Castle in eighteen
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Speaker 1: thirty one, and in eighteen thirty seven Paper Money, Lyrics
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Speaker 1: and other poems. All the novels I have named, and
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Speaker 1: they are his most famous, belonged to the pre Victorian period,
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Speaker 1: but Guilgrange, his last novel, was published in eighteen sixty one.
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Speaker 1: Peacock is interesting as a novelist and for his relations
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Speaker 1: with as famous man. He was, as I have said,
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Speaker 1: the friend of Shelley, and he was the father in
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Speaker 1: law of mister George Meredith. Added to this, he succeeded
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Speaker 1: James Mill's post at the Indian House and vacated it
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Speaker 1: for James Mill's son, John Stuart Mill. To R. L. Stevenson,
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Speaker 1: we undoubtedly owe much of the impulse to the modern
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Speaker 1: Romantic movement, which adds every day an historical novel or
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Speaker 1: a story of adventure to our libraries he has given
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Speaker 1: us Stanley Wayman, Q A. T. Quillock, Houch, Anthony Hope,
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Speaker 1: Max Pemberton, and Conan Doyle, the greater of Sherlock Holmes.
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Speaker 1: Another Scotsman, George mac donald eighteen twenty four to nineteen
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Speaker 1: o five, whose Robert Falconer, David Algenbrodt and Alec Forbes
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Speaker 1: of Hoglen have charmed nearly a generation, had less influence
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Speaker 1: than might have been thought upon the younger Scottish writers
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Speaker 1: who have made Scottish deans and Scottish dialect so marked
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Speaker 1: an element in many popular works. James Matthew Berry, for example,
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Speaker 1: had written A Window in Thrums before he had read
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Speaker 1: one of doctor mc donald's books. Mister Berry was probably influenced, however,
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Speaker 1: by John Galt seventeen seventy nine to eighteen fifty nine,
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Speaker 1: whose Ayrshire Legatees and Annas of the Parish were written
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Speaker 1: before the Queen began to Rain. A writer whose most
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Speaker 1: striking book was published sufficiently long ago to justify its
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Speaker 1: inclusion here was Joseph Henry Shorthouse eighteen thirty four to
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Speaker 1: nineteen o three. His John Ingallsend gained for him a
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Speaker 1: reputation which his Sir Percival did not sustain. Mister Shorthouse
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Speaker 1: has written nothing since John Ingleson so beautiful as his
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Speaker 1: Little Schoolmaster mark a singularly poetical conception of abnormal childhood.
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Speaker 1: The best stories for children have been written by Louis
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Speaker 1: Carroll eighteen thirty three to eighteen ninety eight. This is
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Speaker 1: the pseudonym the Reverend Charles Ludwig Dodgen, a lecturer on
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Speaker 1: mathematics at christ Church, Oxford and the author of several
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Speaker 1: mathematical text books. In Euclid and His Modern Rivals and
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Speaker 1: a Tangle Tale, mister Dodgeon has succeeded in combining his
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Speaker 1: taste for science with a rich humor, but his fame
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Speaker 1: rests upon his remarkable fairy stories, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland,
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Speaker 1: published in eighteen sixty five, and its sequel Through the
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Speaker 1: Looking Class, which appeared in eighteen seventy two. Men and women,
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Speaker 1: quite as much as little children have found pleasure and
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Speaker 1: entertainment in these happy efforts of her genius, as individual
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Speaker 1: as anything our age has produced. I have purposely all
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Speaker 1: but ignored many writers of fiction who are still actively
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Speaker 1: engaged in literary pursuits daily charm bring their achievements sufficiently
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Speaker 1: to the front. But literary workers owe so much to
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Speaker 1: the untiring zeal of Sir Walter Besant born in eighteen
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Speaker 1: thirty eight in their behalf, that, at the risk of inconsistency,
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Speaker 1: I mention his all Sorts and Conditions of Men, a
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Speaker 1: story which not only sold by thousands, but had a
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Speaker 1: practical influence such as is rarely given to poet or
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Speaker 1: novelist to achieve. The writer dreams of a wealthy haaress
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Speaker 1: devoting her time and money to purifying and elevating the
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Speaker 1: East end of London, to build a palace of delight
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Speaker 1: and devote it to the service of the people. In
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Speaker 1: May eighteen eighty seven the dream was realized, for the
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Speaker 1: Queen opened just such a palace for the people in
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Speaker 1: the Island Road. How far this institution, the outcome of
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Speaker 1: a novelist's imagination and the generous subscriptions of philanthropists, has
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Speaker 1: achieved the regeneration of the London poor history as yet
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Speaker 1: to record. Vesant wrote at an earlier period twelve novels
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Speaker 1: in conjunction with James Rice eighteen forty three to eighteen
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Speaker 1: eighty two, a collaborator of singular humor and imagination. Of
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Speaker 1: the books written conjointly, Ready Money, Marty Boy and The
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Speaker 1: Golden Butterfly are the most popular. Passing from the acknowledged
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Speaker 1: masters in imaginative literature, one turned to a crowd of
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Speaker 1: popular and interesting writers who have charmed and delighted multitudes
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Speaker 1: of readers. Foremost among these are Liver and Marriott. Charles
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Speaker 1: Lever eighteen o six to eighteen seventy two was for
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Speaker 1: some time editor of the Dublin University magazine, but his
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Speaker 1: Irish stories Charles O'Malley and Harry Loriker are his chief
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Speaker 1: title to fame. That strolicking humor of these books still
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Speaker 1: commands attention is proved by a recent luxurious reissue of them.
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Speaker 1: Another Irishman who won the affections of irishmen as Lever
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Speaker 1: won the laughter, was William Carlton seventeen ninety eight to
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Speaker 1: eighteen sixty nine, who was born at Brilisk, County Tyrone.
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Speaker 1: He was the youngest of fourteen children. His equal knowledge
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Speaker 1: of Irish and English gave him an intimacy with the
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Speaker 1: folklore and fairy tales which make up so large a
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Speaker 1: part in the lives of the poorer among his countrymen
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Speaker 1: and Trades and Stories of the Irish Peasantry eighteen thirty
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Speaker 1: three and Tales of Ireland eighteen thirty four were the
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Speaker 1: result His romance Fado Rogadmeiser appeared in eighteen thirty nine,
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Speaker 1: and he treated in eighteen forty seven of the horrors
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Speaker 1: of the Irish famine in his Black Prophet. Carlton has
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Speaker 1: for many years ceased to be read in England, but
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Speaker 1: he shares in the revived interest in Irish literature, which
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Speaker 1: has taken the place of interest in Irish policy. Joseph
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Speaker 1: Sheridan Le'thonneux eighteen fourteen to eighteen seventy three also made
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Speaker 1: a great success with Uncle Silla's eighteen sixty four and
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Speaker 1: In a Class Darkly eighteen seventy two. Frederick Marriott seventeen
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Speaker 1: ninety two to eighteen forty eight ran away to sea
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Speaker 1: several times before his father, a Member of Parliament of
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Speaker 1: Great Wealth, consented to his being a sailor. He was
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Speaker 1: a successful and popular naval officer before he was twenty one.
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Speaker 1: He was thirty seven years of age when he wrote
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Speaker 1: his first novel, Frank Mildmay, the success of which led
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Speaker 1: him to adopt literature as the profession of his later life.
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Speaker 1: Of his many novels, of which Mister Midshipman Easy and
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Speaker 1: Peter Simple are perhaps the best, several appeared in the
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Speaker 1: Metropolitan magazine, which Marriatt edited for four years. Not only
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Speaker 1: is Marriad the most delightful of writers for boys, but
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Speaker 1: it is interesting to note that both Carlyle and Ruskin,
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Speaker 1: during long terms of illness, so lays themselves with his
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Speaker 1: wonderful sea stories. A writer who gave much healthy pleasure
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Speaker 1: to his schoolboys was William Henry Charles Kingston eighteen fourteen
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Speaker 1: to eighteen eighty, who left behind him one hundred and
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Speaker 1: twenty five stories of the sea. Another writer for boys,
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Speaker 1: William Harrison Ainsworth eighteen o five to eighteen eighty two,
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Speaker 1: was the son of a Manchester solicitor. The majority of
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Speaker 1: his thirty novels treat of historical themes. The best of them,
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Speaker 1: Old Saint Paul's The Tower of London and Rookwood, have
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Speaker 1: been translated into most modern languages. Scarcely less popular for
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Speaker 1: a time was G. P. R. James eighteen o one
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Speaker 1: to eighteen sixty, who also dealt freely with history. Thackeray
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Speaker 1: bolesked James so skillfully that he has a they become
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Speaker 1: a tradition. He was British consul in Virginia and afterwards
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Speaker 1: at Venice, where he died. Living English novelists of well
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Speaker 1: deserved popularity are mister Hardy, mister Black and mister Blackmore.
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Speaker 1: Thomas Hardy, born in eighteen forty made his earlier fame
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Speaker 1: by Far from the Madding Crowd eighteen seventy four. He
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Speaker 1: made his later popularity by Tess of the d'Urbervilles eighteen
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Speaker 1: ninety two. Between these books came two stories greater than
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Speaker 1: either The Return of the Native eighteen seventy eight and
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Speaker 1: The Woodlanders eighteen eighty seven. One must read those books
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Speaker 1: to appreciate how very great a novelist mister Hardy is,
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Speaker 1: how full of poetry and of insight. The Dorsetshire landscape,
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Speaker 1: which under the guise of Wessex he has made so familia,
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Speaker 1: will be classic ground for many a day to all
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Speaker 1: lovers of good literature. Although Welliam Black born in eighteen
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Speaker 1: forty one, who was born in Glasgow, has written numerous
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Speaker 1: stories about the West Highlands of Scotland, he has new
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Speaker 1: affinity whatever to the New Scots School. He made his
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Speaker 1: first appearance as a novelist in eighteen sixty seven with
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Speaker 1: Love or Marriage, and almost every year since he has
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Speaker 1: published a story. Over thirty novels now bearing his name.
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Speaker 1: Black has recognized the value of the picturesque background afforded
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Speaker 1: by West Highland scenery, with its accompanying incidents in the
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Speaker 1: Arrecter Life of the Dearest Worker and Angler. He has
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Speaker 1: given us some real characterization in a Daughter of Heth
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Speaker 1: eighteen seventy one in medcap Violet eighteen seventy six, while
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Speaker 1: MacLeod of There eighteen seventy eight is perhaps the best
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Speaker 1: thing he has written. Richard Doddridge Blackmore born in eighteen
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Speaker 1: twenty five has written many interesting novels, but it has
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Speaker 1: been his perverse faith to live by only one of them.
23:02
Speaker 1: Lorna Doone, was published in eighteen sixty nine, and, although
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Speaker 1: received coldly at first, finally achieved great popularity, and visits
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Speaker 1: to the Lorna Doone country, as that part of deventure
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Speaker 1: is called, make part of the traveled education of every
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Speaker 1: literary American. As a master of rustic comedy, he stands
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Speaker 1: unexcelled in our day, and the merits of certain other novels,
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Speaker 1: the Maid of Skurr, Christovel and Gripps the Carrier, may
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Speaker 1: some day become more fully recognized, not less popular, than
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Speaker 1: the novelist of locality. For this description may surely be
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Speaker 1: applied to mister Hardy and two other writers I have named.
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Speaker 1: Is the novelist of sensation. William Wilkie Collins eighteen twenty
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Speaker 1: four to eighteen eighty nine was the most prominent exponent
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Speaker 1: of that school. The Woman in White, which appeared in
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Speaker 1: eighteen sixty in all the year round, took the town
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Speaker 1: by dawn, but Count Fosco would be pronounced that tiresome
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Speaker 1: villain to day. With the Moonstern and the New Magdalene,
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Speaker 1: Wilkie Collins secured almost equal success. Although it has been
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Speaker 1: affirmed that the new Wilkie Collins, that is to say,
24:15
Speaker 1: a novelist of pure sensation, might even now have a
24:19
Speaker 1: great vogue, it is quite certain that the actual Wilkie
24:22
Speaker 1: Collins has lost a greater part of his Another novelist
24:27
Speaker 1: who presents himself as little more than a name to
24:29
Speaker 1: the present generation is Samuel Warren eighteen o seven to
24:33
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy seven. He was a doctor and like his homotype,
24:38
Speaker 1: mister Connandoyle, half a century later, studied medicine at the
24:43
Speaker 1: University of Edinburgh. His Passages from the Diary of the
24:47
Speaker 1: Late Physician began in Blackwood's magazine in eighteen thirty and
24:52
Speaker 1: was well received, but a still greater success attended his
24:56
Speaker 1: ten thousand a Year, which appeared first in the same periodical.
25:01
Speaker 1: Time has dealt unkindly with Samuel Warren. It is yet
25:04
Speaker 1: to be seen how Time would deal with another popular favorite,
25:08
Speaker 1: Missus Henry Wood eighteen twenty to eighteen eighty seven, who
25:12
Speaker 1: was born in Worcestershire and made the city of Worcester
25:16
Speaker 1: the center of many of his stories. The Channings and
25:19
Speaker 1: Missus Halliburton's Troubles are her best novels, and they have
25:23
Speaker 1: had a well deserved popularity, for Missus Wood has splendid
25:26
Speaker 1: faculty for telling a story. Her even more popular novel
25:31
Speaker 1: East Lynne, will probably survive for many a year as
25:34
Speaker 1: a stage play. Next to Charlotte Pontey and George Elliott,
25:39
Speaker 1: the most distinguished woman novelist of the year is Missus
25:43
Speaker 1: Gaskell eighteen ten to eighteen sixty five, who, as Elizabeth
25:47
Speaker 1: Gleckhorn Stevenson married William Gaskell, a Unitarian minister of Manchester.
25:54
Speaker 1: Missus Gaskell's first literary success was Mary Barton, the story
25:58
Speaker 1: of a Manchester factory girl. Ruth North and South and
26:04
Speaker 1: Sylvia's Lovers were equally successful, but the two books which
26:08
Speaker 1: ascertain secute immortality to their author are Cranford eighteen fifty
26:13
Speaker 1: three and The Life of Charlotte Pronte eighteen fifty seven.
26:18
Speaker 1: Granford is in a dill of village life which is
26:20
Speaker 1: sure to charm many generations of readers, and not a
26:23
Speaker 1: few artists have delighted to illustrate its quaint and fascinating
26:27
Speaker 1: character studies. Granford has been identified with Knutsford in Cheshire.
26:33
Speaker 1: Missus Gaskell's biography of her friend Charlotte Proonte has probably
26:37
Speaker 1: had a larger sale than any other biography in our literature.
26:41
Speaker 1: Many causes contributed to this, the popularity of the Bronte novels,
26:46
Speaker 1: the exceptionally romantic and pathetic life of their authors, Missus
26:50
Speaker 1: Gaskell's own fame as a writer of fiction, and the
26:53
Speaker 1: literary skill with which she greeted the material at her command.
26:58
Speaker 1: Are the women writers have had a large measure of
27:01
Speaker 1: fame and are now well nigh forgotten. Are Missus marsh
27:05
Speaker 1: seventeen ninety one to eighteen seventy four, who wrote The
27:09
Speaker 1: Admiral's Daughter and the Deformed, Missus Crowe eighteen hundred to
27:14
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy six, who wrote Susan Hopley and The Night
27:19
Speaker 1: Side of Nature. Missus archer Clive eighteen o one to
27:23
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy three, who wrote Paul Ferrell. Lady Tutanah Fullerton
27:27
Speaker 1: eighteen twelve to eighteen eighty five, the author of Anne Sherwood,
27:33
Speaker 1: Missus Stretton eighteen twelve to eighteen seventy eight, who wrote
27:36
Speaker 1: The Valley of a Hundred Fires. All these are now
27:41
Speaker 1: little more than names to us, But not so Anne
27:44
Speaker 1: Manning eighteen hundred to eighteen seventy nine, whose maiden and
27:48
Speaker 1: married life of Mary Powell will long continue to be read.
27:53
Speaker 1: It is an effective presentation of Milton and his first wife.
27:57
Speaker 1: Missus Norton eighteen o eight to eighteen seve tventy seven,
28:01
Speaker 1: the byron of poetesses, as Lockhart described her, wrote several novels,
28:06
Speaker 1: Steward of Dunleath and Lost and Saved, being perhaps the
28:10
Speaker 1: best known in their time. But she lives now mainly
28:13
Speaker 1: and George Meredith's Diana of the Crossways Bunah Molloch eighteen
28:19
Speaker 1: twenty six to eighteen eighty seven. Missus Craig may still
28:24
Speaker 1: be ranked among our most popular novelists, although her best
28:27
Speaker 1: and most successful book, John Halifax Gentleman was published in
28:32
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty seven. The Memory of Julia Cavanor eighteen twenty
28:37
Speaker 1: four to eighteen seventy seven, although her Madeleine was enthusiastically
28:42
Speaker 1: created on its appearance as all but faded Away Miss
28:46
Speaker 1: Governor's Women in France. In the eighteenth century, English Women
28:50
Speaker 1: of Letters and French Women of Letters were handsomely got
28:54
Speaker 1: up books and are still to be found in many
28:56
Speaker 1: old fashioned libraries. Two of the most popular writers for
29:01
Speaker 1: children were A l Oe and Missus Ewing. A lo
29:05
Speaker 1: Oe or a Lady of England was the pseudonym of
29:09
Speaker 1: Charlotte Maria Tucker eighteen twenty one to eighteen ninety three, who,
29:14
Speaker 1: after many years of successful literary labor, went out to
29:18
Speaker 1: India for the Church Missionary Society at the age of
29:21
Speaker 1: fifty four. Miss Tucker's most popular stories were Bride and
29:26
Speaker 1: his Pursuers, Exiles in Babylon House Beautiful and Cyril Ashley
29:33
Speaker 1: scarcely less popular was Missus Ewing eighteen forty one to
29:37
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty four, whose mother, Missus Gatty, edited Aunt Judy's magazine.
29:43
Speaker 1: It was in this magazine that Missus Ewing's remembrances of
29:46
Speaker 1: Missus over the Way made their appearance. Another writer of
29:51
Speaker 1: great popularity, Missus charles eighteen twenty eight to eighteen ninety six,
29:56
Speaker 1: secured an immense success with the Schoenberg, kotterfe Kitterdravellian's Diary,
30:02
Speaker 1: and other books of a semi religious, semi historical tendency.
30:07
Speaker 1: It is a natural association not derived from similarity of
30:10
Speaker 1: name to mention Maria Louisa Charlesworth eighteen nineteen to eighteen
30:16
Speaker 1: eighty At the same time, because Miss Charlesworth's ministering children
30:22
Speaker 1: had an enormous success with the religious public of England,
30:25
Speaker 1: the public which supports missionary societies and Sunday schools. I
30:32
Speaker 1: might easily devote many pages to the living women novelists
30:35
Speaker 1: who have impressed themselves upon the era, but that scarcely
30:39
Speaker 1: comes within the scope of this little book. There are
30:42
Speaker 1: to name but a few Missus Lynde Linton, Missus Humphrey
30:46
Speaker 1: ward Uider, Miss Breddon, Miss Mary Corelli, Miss Olive Shriner,
30:52
Speaker 1: Miss Rhoder Broughton, Edna Lyle Lucas Mallott, Miss Charlotte Young,
30:58
Speaker 1: Miss Adeline's Surgent, Missus mc woy, Missus Alexander, Missus W. K. Clifford.
31:05
Speaker 1: Names would recall the thousands of readers, many familiar books,
31:09
Speaker 1: and some of the happiest hours they have ever spent.
31:13
Speaker 1: With the name of Missus Oliphant eighteen twenty eight to
31:17
Speaker 1: eighteen ninety seven, who has recently died, I may fitly
31:20
Speaker 1: close this survey of Victorian fiction. Missus Oliphant struck the
31:25
Speaker 1: note of the era alike in her versatility and in
31:28
Speaker 1: her like of thoroughness. She was so versatile that she
31:32
Speaker 1: once offered to write the whole number of Blackwood's Magazine,
31:35
Speaker 1: a publication to which she was for years a valued contributor,
31:40
Speaker 1: and she would have done it with fair effectiveness. That
31:43
Speaker 1: she wrote good fiction is now generally acknowledged. She wrote
31:48
Speaker 1: also a biography, criticism, and every form of prose. Her
31:53
Speaker 1: Makers of Florence has been a popular history. It treats
31:57
Speaker 1: of Dante Giotto and Savonarola. As her Life of Edward
32:02
Speaker 1: Irving has been a popular biography, she wrote many other
32:06
Speaker 1: books apart from her fiction, a history of eighteenth century literature,
32:10
Speaker 1: a memoir of Principal Tullock, biographies of Savantes and Moliere,
32:15
Speaker 1: and a volume on dress. But she was not a
32:19
Speaker 1: good critic, nor was she a very accurate student. It
32:23
Speaker 1: is upon her novels that her fame will have to rest.
32:26
Speaker 1: Salem Chappel, a skillful delineation of a minister and his congregation,
32:31
Speaker 1: has been compared to Judge Elliot's Sela's Manor. Passages in
32:36
Speaker 1: the Life of Margaret Maitland eighteen forty nine was her
32:40
Speaker 1: first novel, and The Lady's Walk eighteen ninety seven her last.
32:45
Speaker 1: And in the intervening years she probably wrote sixty or
32:48
Speaker 1: seventy stories, each of them containing indications of a genius, which,
32:53
Speaker 1: with more concentration, would have given her an enduring place
32:57
Speaker 1: in English fiction. And of Chapter two, Part two recording
33:03
Speaker 1: by yule Ni Damaya