The third sister, Anne, in her short life wrote two novels, Agnes Grey (1847) and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1847). They are much inferior to the novels of her sisters, for she lacks nearly all their power and intensity.
2. Charles Reade (1814–84) was born in Oxfordshire, being the youngest son of a squire. He was educated at Iffley and Oxford, and then, entering Lincoln’s Inn, was called to the Bar. He was only slightly interested in the legal profession, but very fond of the theater and traveling. After 1852 he settled down to the career of the successful man of letters. He died at Shepherd’s Bush.
He began authorship with the writing of plays. As a playwright he had a fair amount of success, his most fortunate production being Masks and Faces (1852), written in collaboration with Tom Taylor. Peg Woffington (1853) was his first novel, and was followed by Christie Johnstone (1853), which deals with Scottish fisherfolk. It’s Never too Late to Mend (1856), sometimes considered to be his masterpiece, treats of prisons and of life in the colonies. The Cloister and the Hearth (1861), one of his best novels, is a story of the later Middle Ages, and shows the author’s immense care and knowledge; Hard Cash (1863) is an attack upon private lunatic asylums; and Griffith Gaunt (1866), Foul Play (1869), and some other inferior books are in the nature of propaganda against abuses of the time.
When he is at his best Reade tells a fine tale, for he can move with speed and describe with considerable power. But he tends to overload his narrative with historical and topical detail, of which he collected great masses. His style, too, is frequently marred by annoying tricks of manner, such as over-emphasis and mechanical repetition. Since his own day his reputation has declined.
3. Anthony Trollope (1815–82) is another Victorian novelist who just missed greatness. The son of a barrister, he was born in London, educated at Harrow and Winchester, and obtained an appointment in the Post Office. After an unpromising start he rapidly improved, and rose high in the service.
In all Trollope wrote over fifty novels, the best of which are The Warden (1855), Barchester Towers (1857), Doctor Thorne (1858), Framley Parsonage (1861), and The Last Chronicle of Barset (1867). He is at his best when he deals with the lives of the clergymen of the town that he calls Barchester, which has been identified with Salisbury. His novels, owing to the rapidity of their output, tend to become mechanical and ill constructed; but he has a genial humor, a lively narrative method, and much shrewd observation. Barchester Towers contains several characters not unworthy of Dickens.
4. Wilkie Collins (1824–89) is considered to be the most successful of the followers of Dickens. At one time, about 1860, his vogue was nearly as great as that of Dickens himself. Collins was born in London, and was a son of a famous painter. After a few years spent in business he took to the study of the law, but very soon abandoned that for literature. He was a versatile man, dabbling much in journalism and play-writing.
Collins specialized in the mystery novel, to which he sometimes added a spice of the supernatural. In many of his books the story, which is often ingeniously complicated, is unfolded by letters or the narratives of persons actually engaged in the events. To a certain extent this method is cumbrous, but it allowed Collins to draw his characters with much wealth of detail. His characters are often described in the Dickensian manner of emphasizing some humor or peculiarity. He wrote more than twenty-five novels, the most popular being The Dead Secret (1857), The Woman in White (1860)—the most successful of them all—No Name (1862), and The Moonstone (1868). The Moonstone is one of the earliest and the best of the great multitude of detective stories that now crowd the popular press. Collins was in addition one of the first authors to devote himself to the short magazine story; After Dark is a little masterpiece.
5. George Eliot—the pen name of Mary Ann Evans (1819–80)—was during her lifetime reckoned to be among the greatest authors, but time has dealt rather unkindly with her reputation. Even yet, however, she ranks among the greatest of women novelists. The daughter of a Warwickshire land-agent, she was born near Nuneaton, and after being educated at Nuneaton and Coventry lived much at home. Her mind was well above the ordinary in its bent for religious and philosophical speculation. In 1846 she translated Strauss’s Life of Jesus, and on the death of her father in 1849 she took entirely to literary work. She was appointed assistant editor of the Westminster Review (1851), and became the center of a literary circle. In later life she traveled extensively, and married (1880) Mr. J. W. Cross. She died at Chelsea in the same year.
Her first fiction consisted of three short stories published in Blackwood’s Magazine and reissued under the title of Scenes from Clerical Life (1857). Adam Bede (1859), her second book, was brilliantly successful. It is a story of country life, subtly yet powerfully told. To this succeeded The Mill on the Floss (1860), partly autobiographical. This book is longer and heavier than its predecessor, but it has much tragic force and acute observation, and a placidly caustic humor. Silas Marner (1861) is shorter, crisper, and exceedingly effective, but Romola (1863), a laborious story of medieval Florence, is overweighted with learning and philosophizing. After this point the decline is rapid in Felix Holt (1866), Middlemarch (1872), Daniel Deronda (1876), and The Impressions of Theophrastus Such (1879).