Victorian Literature: Sixty Years of Books and Bookmen

by Clement King Shorter

I have purposely all but ignored many writers of fiction who are still actively engaged in literary pursuits. The daily journals bring their achievements sufficiently to the front. But literary workers owe so much to the untiring zeal of Sir Walter Besant1838- in their behalf, that at the risk of inconsistency I mention his "All Sorts and Conditions of Men," a story which not only sold by thousands, but had a practical influence such as is rarely given to poet or novelist to achieve. The writer dreams of a wealthy heiress devoting her time and money to purifying and elevating the East End of London. She builds a Palace of Delight, and devotes it to the service of the people. In May, 1887, the dream was realised, for the Queen opened just such a Palace for the People in the Mile-End Road. How far this institution, the outcome of a novelist's imagination and the generous subscriptions of philanthropists, has achieved the regeneration of the London poor, history has yet to record. Sir Walter Besant wrote at an earlier period twelve novels in conjunction with James Rice1843-1882, a collaborator of singular humour and imagination. Of the books written conjointly, "Ready Money Mortiboy" and "The Golden Butterfly" are the most popular.

Passing from the acknowledged masters in imaginative literature, one turns to a crowd of popular and interesting writers who have charmed and delighted multitudes of readers. Foremost among these are Lever and Marryat. Charles Lever1806-1872 was for some time editor of the Dublin University Magazine, but his Irish stories, "Charles O'Malley" and "Harry Lorrequer" are his chief title to fame. That the rollicking humour of these books still commands attention is proved by a recent luxurious re-issue of them.[9]

Another Irishman, who won the affections of Irishmen as Lever won their laughter, was William Carleton1798-1869, who was born at Prillisk, county Tyrone. He was the youngest of fourteen children. His equal knowledge of Irish and English gave him an intimacy with the folk-lore and fairy tales, which make up so large a part in the lives of the poorer among his countrymen, and "Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry" (1833) and "Tales of Ireland" (1834), were the result. His romance, "Fardorougha the Miser," appeared in 1839, and he treated in 1847 of the horrors of the Irish famine in his "Black Prophet." Carleton has for many years ceased to be read in England, but he shares in the revived interest in Irish literature, which has taken the place of interest in Irish politics. Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu1814-1873 also made a great success with "Uncle Silas" (1864) and "In a Glass Darkly" (1872).

Frederick Marryat1792-1848 ran away to sea several times before his father, a member of Parliament of great wealth, consented to his being a sailor. He was a successful and popular naval officer before he was twenty-one. He was thirty-seven years of age when he wrote his first novel, "Frank Mildmay," the success of which led him to adopt literature as the profession of his later life. Of his many novels, of which "Mr Midshipman Easy" and "Peter Simple" are perhaps the best, several appeared in the Metropolitan Magazine, which Marryat edited for four years. Not only is Marryat the most delightful of writers for boys, but it is interesting to note that both Carlyle and Ruskin during long terms of illness solaced themselves with his wonderful sea-stories.

A writer who gave much healthy pleasure to schoolboys was William Henry Giles Kingston (1814-1880), who left behind him one hundred and twenty-five stories of the sea. Another writer for boys, William Harrison Ainsworth1805-1882, was the son of a Manchester solicitor. The majority of his thirty novels treat of historical themes. The best of them, "Old St Paul's," "The Tower of London," and "Rookwood," have been translated into most modern languages. Scarcely less popular for a time was G. P. R. James1801-1860, who also dealt freely with history. Thackeray burlesqued James so skilfully that he has already become a tradition. He was British Consul in Virginia, and afterwards at Venice, where he died.

Living English novelists of well-deserved popularity, are Mr Hardy, Mr Black, and Mr Blackmore.

Thomas Hardy1840- made his earlier fame by "Far from the Madding Crowd" (1874). He made his later popularity by "Tess of the D'Urbervilles" (1892). Between these books came two stories greater than either—"The Return of the Native" (1878) and "The Woodlanders" (1887). One must read those books to appreciate how very great a novelist Mr Hardy is, how full of poetry and of insight. The Dorsetshire landscape which, under the guise of "Wessex," he has made so familiar, will be classic ground for many a day to all lovers of good literature.

Although William Black1841-, who was born in Glasgow, has written numerous stories about the West Highlands of Scotland, he has no affinity whatever to the new Scotch school. He made his first appearance as a novelist in 1867 with "Love or Marriage," and almost every year since he has published a story, over thirty novels now bearing his name. Black has recognised the value of the picturesque back-ground afforded by West Highland scenery, with its accompanying incidents in the outdoor life of the deer stalker and angler. He has given us some real characterization in "A Daughter of Heth" (1871), in "Madcap Violet" (1876): while "Macleod of Dare" (1878) is perhaps the best thing he has written.

Richard Doddridge Blackmore1825- has written many interesting novels, but it has been his perverse fate to live by only one of them. "Lorna Doone" was published in 1869, and although received coldly at first, finally achieved great popularity: and visits to the Lorna Doone country, as that part of Devonshire is called, make part of the travelled education of every literary American. As a master of rustic comedy he stands unexcelled in our day, and the merits of certain other novels—"The Maid of Sker," "Christowell" and "Cripps the Carrier"—may some day become more fully recognised.

Not less popular than the novelist of locality—for this description may surely be applied to Mr Hardy and the two other writers I have named—is the novelist of sensation. William Wilkie Collins1824-1889 was the most prominent exponent of that School. "The Woman in White," which appeared in 1860 in All the Year Round, took the town by storm, but Count Fosco would be pronounced a tiresome villain to-day. With "The Moonstone" and "The New Magdalen" Wilkie Collins secured almost equal success. Although it has been affirmed that a new Wilkie Collins, that is to say a novelist of pure sensation, might even now have a great vogue, it is quite certain that the actual Wilkie Collins has lost the greater part of his.[10] Another novelist who presents himself as little more than a name to the present generation is Samuel Warren1807-1877. He was a doctor, and, like his homotype, Mr Conan Doyle half a century later, studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh. His "Passages from the Diary of a Late Physician" began in Blackwood's Magazine in 1830, and was well received, but a still greater success attended his "Ten Thousand a Year," which appeared first in the same periodical.