Mrs. Gaskell died on the twelfth of November, 1865. Of the novelists who have been considered in this book only three survived her, Mrs. Bray, Mrs. S. C. Hall, and Harriet Martineau, but they added little to prose fiction after that date. During the third quarter of the nineteenth century, however, the number of books written by women continued to increase each year. Julia Kavanagh was the author of several novels, the first of which The Three Paths, was published in 1848; all her stories were written with high moral aim and delicacy of feeling. Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe, published in 1850, is probably the most powerful novel ever written to plead the cause of oppressed humanity. Dinah Maria Muloch Craik kept up the interest in the domestic novel; her most popular book, John Halifax, Gentleman, has lost none of its charm for young women, even if it does not meet the requirements of a classic. Mrs. Henry Wood is still remembered as the author of the melodramatic East Lynne, but her best stories are the Johnny Ludlow Papers, which deal with character alone; her popularity is attested by the fact that more than a million copies of her books have been issued. Charlotte Yonge's forgotten novels were classed among the Church Stories, because they contain so much piety and devotion. Of a different type was Miss de la Ramée, who wrote under the name of Ouidà; she had fine gifts of word-painting, but a fondness for the questionable in conduct. Miss Braddon, the author of Lady Audley's Secret, excelled in complicated plots. Mrs. Oliphant has been a most versatile writer, and followed almost every style of prose fiction; her domestic stories are generally considered her best. Anne Thackeray, better known as Mrs. Ritchie, the daughter of the great novelist, has written several novels, all of which have a delightfully feminine touch. Miss Rhoda Broughton has entertained the reading public by love stories which hold the attention until the marriage takes place. But all these women fade into insignificance beside George Eliot, whose first story, The Sad Fortunes of the Rev. Amos Barton, appeared in Blackwood's Magazine in 1857, and whose last novel, Daniel Deronda, was published nearly twenty years later, in 1876.
It seems strange that any reader of her books should have thought them the product of a man's brain, as was at first believed. For, notwithstanding her power in developing a plot, her breadth of view, and her mental grasp, her genius is essentially feminine. She excelled in analysis of character, in attention to details, in ethical teaching, and in artistic truthfulness, the qualities in which women have been pre-eminent. Only a woman's pen could have drawn such characters as Dinah Morris, Maggie Tulliver, and Dorothea Casaubon, or could have followed the minute and subtle influences under which the plot of Middlemarch is shaped. George Eliot has left a larger portrait gallery of women than any other novelist. Not only has she drawn different grades of society, but, what is perhaps a more difficult task, she has drawn the different grades of spiritual greatness and moral littleness. She brought the psychological novel to a degree of perfection which has never been surpassed.
Mrs. Oliphant has thus written of George Eliot's place in literature:
"Another question which has been constantly put to this age, and which is pushed with greater zeal every day, as to the position of women in literature and the height which it is in their power to attain, was solved by this remarkable woman, in a way most flattering to all who were and are fighting the question of equality between the two halves of mankind; for here was visibly a woman who was to be kept out by no barriers, who sat down quietly from the beginning of her career in the highest place, and, if she did not absolutely excel all her contemporaries in the revelation of the human mind and the creation of new human beings, at least was second to none in those distinguishing characteristics of genius."
We are too near the nineteenth century to decide as to the relative positions of its great novelists. At one time George Eliot was placed at the head of all writers of fiction, with Dickens and Thackeray as rivals for the second place. But she was dethroned by Thackeray, and there are signs that the final kingship will be given to Charles Dickens, unless Scott receives it instead.
Fashions in novels change at least every fifty years. Exciting plots and situations, strong emotional scenes, sharp contrasts, are not demanded by present readers, who also turn away with disgust from the saintly heroine and the irreclaimable villain. Of the many volumes of fiction written in the eighteenth century only two are in general circulation to-day, Robinson Crusoe and The Vicar of Wakefield. But all those once popular novels, even if their very names are now forgotten, have done their work in shaping the thought and morals of their own and succeeding generations.
INDEX
Abbott, The, [137]
Absentee, The, [61], [112-113], [122]
Ada Reis, [203]
Adam Bede, [84], [289], [295]
Addison, Joseph, [21], [28]
Adeline Mowbray, or the Mother and Daughter, [150-153]
Adventures of an Atom, [23]
Afflicted Parent, The, or the Undutiful Child Punished, [125]
Age of Wordsworth, The, [193]
Agnes Grey, [258-259], [261], [265]
Ainsworth, William Harrison, [216], [239]
Alderson, Miss, see Opie, Amelia
Amorous Friars, or the Intrigues of a Convent, [42]
Amos Barton, [294]
Amours of Prince Tarquin and Miranda, [18]
Antiquary, The, [102], [104]
Arabian Nights, [15], [233]
Arblay, Madame D', see Burney, Frances
Arblay, Madame D', Essay on, [57-58], [61], [168-169]
Arden, Enoch, [187]
Arnold, Matthew, [257]
Artless Tales, [139]
Athenæum, The, [194], [256]
Aurora Leigh, [292]
Austen, Jane, [39], [45], [60], [101], [157-178], [179], [180], [191], [195], [196], [216], [263], [270], [276], [291]
Baillie, Joanna, [154], [155]
Balzac, Honoré de, [170]
Banker's Wife, The, [225]
Barbauld, Mrs. Anna Letitia, [121]
Barrett, Miss, see Browning, Elizabeth
Barring Out, The, [125]
Bas Bleu, [62], [63]
Beauty Put to its Shifts, or the Young Virgin's Rambles, [42]
Behn, Aphra, [1], [13-19]
Belford Regis, [193-196]
Belinda, [121], [177]
Beside the Bonny Brier Bush, [137]
Betsy Thoughtless, Miss, The History of, [36-39], [46], [48]
Bithynia, An Adventure in, [233]
Blackwood's Magazine, [107], [294]
Blake, William, [2]
Blazing World, Description of a New World Called the, [6-7]
Blessington, Lady, [232], [233]
Blind Harry the Minstrel, [143], [144]
Bonheur, Rosa, [1]
Book of Snobs, The, [291]
Boswell, James, [138]
Bousset, [3]
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth, [294]
Bray, Ann Eliza, [216], [225-230], [232], [293]
Bride of Lammermoor, The, [256]
Brontë, Anne, [249], [250], [257-261]
Brontë, Charlotte, [85], [174], [210], [249], [250], [256], [258], [261-273]
Brontë, Emily, [248], [249-257], [258], [267], [270], [271], [273]
Brontës, The, [247-273], [276]
Brooke and Brooke Farm, [242]
Broughton, Rhoda, [294]
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, [81], [103], [190], [242]
Brunton, Alexander, [156]
Brunton, Mary, [41], [149], [153-156], [262]
Bubbled Knights, or Successful Contrivances, [42]
Bulwer, Edward, Lord Lytton, [200], [216], [223]
Burke, Edmund, [46], [54], [62]
Burney, Charles, [46]
Burney, Frances, [39], [45-61], [168], [176], [177], [181], [195]
Byron, Lord (George Gordon), [109], [200-206], [210-213], [257]
Caleb Williams, [73]
Camilla, or a Picture of Youth, [59-60], [176], [177]
Canterbury Tales, The, [106-110]
Caroline Evelyn, The History of, [47]
Carter, Elizabeth, [62]
Castle of Otranto, The, [88]
Castle Rackrent, [111-112], [117]
Castles of Athlyn and Dunbayne, [89]
Cavendish, Margaret, see Newcastle, Duchess of
Cavendish, William, see Newcastle, Duke of
Cecil, or the Adventures of a Coxcomb, [217-219]
Cecilia, or Memoirs of an Heiress, [54-59], [60], [61], [78], [176], [177]
Celestina, [80]
Chap-Books, [67]
Chapone, Hester, [62]
Chaucer, Geoffrey, [106]
Cheap Repository, The, [67-71]
Childe Harold, [200], [219]
Clarendon, Earl of (Edward Hyde), [10]
Clarissa Harlowe, [8], [26], [30], [171]
Clelia, [32]
Clubman, The, [219]
Coelebs in Search of a Wife, [71-72]
Coleridge, Ernest Hartley, [109]
Collier, Jeremy, [61]
Colman, George, [42], [43], [46]
Confessions of a Pretty Woman, [233]
Congreve, William, [217]
Cooper, James Fenimore, [16]
Corneille, [3]
Cottagers of Glenburnie, The, [16]
Cottin, Sophie, Madame de, [262]
Court Gazette, [20]
Courtenay of Walreddon; a Romance of the West, [227]
Cousin Phillis, [286-287], [288], [292]
Crabbe, George, [263]
Craik, Dinah Maria Muloch, [293]
Craik's English Prose, [245]
Cranford, [277], [281], [287], [288], [291-292]
Crewe, Catherine, [232]
Cry of the Children, The, [242]
Curtis, George William, [174]
Daniel Deronda, [294]
Dante, Alighieri, [286]
David Copperfield, [164]
David Simple, [26-31]
Deerbrook, [243]
Defoe, Daniel, [146]
De Foix, or Sketches of the Manners and Customs of the Fourteenth Century, [226]
Desmond, [74-77], [80]
Destiny, [181], [182], [183], [185], [186-187]
Diana of the Crossways, [103]
Dickens, Charles, [56], [69], [76], [77], [87], [102], [116], [164], [231], [236], [240], [247], [264], [268], [269], [277], [281], [282], [286], [290], [291], [296]
Discipline, [155]
Disraeli, Benjamin, [87], [200], [216], [247], [269], [279]
Dombey and Son, [225]
Domestic Manners of the Americans, [235-236]
Dryden, John, [13]
Duchess of Malfi, The, [256]
Du Maurier, [285]
East Lynne, [293]
Edgeworth, Maria, [102], [111-128], [130], [131], [133], [155], [179], [180], [181], [182], [183], [196], [197], [216], [243], [276]
Edgeworth, Richard Lovell, [115], [118], [119], [121], [124]
Eighteenth Century, History of the, [44]
Elia, see Lamb, Charles
Eliot, George, [84], [109], [119], [164], [174], [276], [277], [289-291], [294-296]
Emma, [161-162], [166-167], [168], [170]
Emmeline, [155]
Ennui, [113], [122]
Enoch Arden, [286]
Epipsychidion, [214]
Essay on Irish Bulls, see Irish Bulls, Essay on
Essay on Madame D'Arblay, see Arblay, Madame D', Essay on
Ethelinda, [79]
Evans, Marian, see Eliot, George
Evelina, or a Young Lady's Entrance into the World, [39], [46], [47-54], [55], [59], [61], [78], [164], [176], [177]
Evelyn, John, [5]
Evening Chronicle, [231]
Examiner, [22]
Fair Jilt, The, [18]
Falkland, [200], [216]
Falkner, [214]
Fantom, Mr.: or the History of the New-Fashioned Philosopher, and his Man William, [68], [72]
Felix Holt, [289]
Female Education, Strictures on the Modern System of, [71]
Female Quixote, The, [32-35]
Ferrier, Susan Edmonstone, [179-188], [189], [216]
Fielding, Henry, [16], [24], [25], [26], [27], [34], [48], [101], [116], [277]
Fielding, Sarah, [23], [24], [26-31]
Fits of Fitz-Ford, [227]
Flies in Amber, [233]
Florence Macarthy, [129]
Fortnightly Review, [185]
Fox, Charles James, [40]
Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus, [206-207], [215]
Fraser's Magazine, [231]
Froissart's Chronicles, [226]
Gait, John, [216]
Garnett, Sir Richard, [214]
Garrick, David, [41], [46], [62]
Garrison, William Lloyd, [245]
Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn, [247], [267], [269], [270], [274-293]
Genlis, Stephanie Felicite, Comtesse de, [118], [262]
Gentleman's Magazine, The, [101]
Gibbon, Edward, [54]
Glenarvon, [200-203]
Godwin, Mary Wollstonecraft, see Wollstonecraft, Mary
Godwin, William, [73], [150], [179], [205], [210], [221]
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, [174]
Goldsmith, Oliver, [79]
Gore, Catherine Grace Frances, [216-225], [233]
Gosse, Edmund, [170]
Grand Cyrus, The, [15], [32], [121]
Gulliver's Travels, [23]
Guy Mannering, [102]
Hackney Coachman, The, [70]
Hall, Anna Maria (Mrs. S. C.), [72], [179], [196-199], [216], [293]
Hall, S. C., [140]
Hamilton, Elizabeth, [133-137]
Hamiltons, The, [224]
Hamlet, [271]
Hard Times, [282]
Hardy, Thomas, [86], [170]
Harriet Stuart, The Life of, [31]
Harry, Blind, the Minstrel, see Blind Harry the Minstrel
Haywood, Eliza, [24], [36-39], [48]
Heir of Selwood, The, [223], [225]
Helen, [119]
Henrietta, [35]
Henry de Pomeroy, [227]
Henry Esmond, [145]
Heptameron, The, [2]
Herford, C. H., [193]
Hints towards Forming the Character of a Young Princess, [71]
Homer, [2], [11], [175]
Horace, [217]
Hour and the Man, The, [242], [244-245]
Huet, Bishop, Pierre Daniel, [46]
Humphry Clinker, [8], [24], [44]
Hungarian Brothers, [139]
Ibrahim, [32], [121]
Ida, or the Woman of Athens, [131]
Impetuous Lover, The, or the Guiltless Parricide, [43]
Inchbald, Elizabeth, [41], [73], [82-87], [105], [119], [221], [262]
Inheritance, The, [181], [182-183], [184], [185], [187-188]
Irish Bulls, Essay on, [115-116]
Irish Peasantry, Stories of the, [197], [198]
Italian, The, [91], [94], [97], [98], [99], [100], [101]
Ivanhoe, [164]
Jackson, Helen Hunt (H. H.), [16]
James, G. P. R., [216], [239]
James, Henry, [291]
Jameson, Mrs. (Anna), [285]
Jane Eyre, [41], [82], [85], [250], [261], [263], [264-267], [270], [272]
Jealous Wife, The, [233]
Jeffrey, Francis, [180]
Joan of Arc, [1]
John Halifax, Gentleman, [293]
Johnny Ludlow Papers, [294]
Johnson, R. Brimley, [245]
Johnson, Dr. Samuel, [30], [31], [32], [39], [42], [46], [48], [55], [60], [62], [103], [128], [138], [291]
Jonathan Jefferson Whitlaw, The Life and Adventures of, [237-239], [242]
Jonson, Ben, [275]
Joseph Andrews, [16], [36], [52]
Journey to Bath, [41]
Jules Verne, see Verne, Jules
Kauffman, Angelica, [103]
Kavanagh, Julia, [293]
King Lear, see Lear
Knox, John, [188]
Kruitzener, or the German's Tale, [108-109]
Lady Audley's Secret, [294]
Lady Clare, [183]
Lady of Lyons, The, [223]
Lady's Magazine, [190]
Lafayette, Madame de, [3], [19], [41], [262]
Lamb, Lady Caroline, [200-204]
Lamb, Charles, [8], [12], [193]
Lamb, William (Lord Melbourne), [200], [201], [202], [203], [204]
Landlady's Tale, The, [109]
Lang, Andrew, [102]
Lanier, Sidney, [25]
Last Man, The, [210-212]
Lazy Lawrence, [125], [126]
Lear, King, [256]
Lee, Harriet, [88], [105-110]
Lee, Sophia, [88], [105-110], [139]
Lennox, Charlotte, [24], [31-36]
Letters of the Duchess of Newcastle, [7-8]