Wenderholme: A Story of Lancashire and Yorkshire

BOSTON: ROBERTS BROTHERS. 1876. Author's Edition .
Cambridge: Press of John Wilson and Son .
You remember a time when the country in which this story is placed was quite different from what it is to-day; when the old proprietors lived in their halls undisturbed by modern innovation, and neither enriched by building leases, nor humiliated by the rivalry of mighty manufacturers. You have seen wonderful changes come to pass,—the valleys filled with towns, and the towns connected by railways, and the fields covered with suburban villas. You have seen people become richer and more refined, though perhaps less merry, than they used to be; till the simple, unpretending life of the poorer gentlefolks of the past has become an almost incredible tradition, which few have preserved in their memory.
When this story was first written, some passages of it were read to you, and they reminded you of those strong contrasts in the life of the North of England which are now so rapidly disappearing. Wenderholme is therefore associated with you in my mind as one of its first hearers, and I dedicate it to you affectionately.

The present edition, though greatly abridged, is not by any means, from the author's point of view, a mutilated edition. On the contrary, it rather resembles a building of moderate dimensions, from which excrescences have been removed. The architect has been careful to preserve every thing essential, and equally careful to take away every thing which had been added merely for the sake of size. The work is therefore at the present time much nearer in character to the original conception of the designer than it has ever been before.
Notwithstanding the defect of too great length, and the difficulty which authors often experience in obtaining recognition in a new field, Wenderholme was very extensively reviewed in England, and, on the whole, very favorably. Unfortunately, however, for the author's chances of profiting by the suggestions of his critics, it so happened that when any character or incident was selected for condemnation by one writer, that identical character or incident was sure to be praised enthusiastically by another, who spoke with equal authority and decision, in some journal of equal importance. The same contradictions occurred in criticisms by private friends, people of great experience and culture. Some praised the first volume, but did not like the third; whilst others, who certainly knew quite as much about such matters, considered that the book began badly, but improved immensely as it went on, and finished in quite an admirable manner, like a horse that has warmed to his work. These differences of opinion led me to the rather discouraging conclusion that there is nothing like an accepted standard of right and wrong in the criticism of fiction; that the critic praises what interests or amuses him, and condemns what he finds tiresome, with little reference to any governing laws of art. I may observe, however, that the book had an artistic intention, which was the contrast between two classes of society in Lancashire, and that the militia was used as a means of bringing these two classes together. I may here reply to one or two objections which have been made as to the manner in which this plan was carried out.