Modern English Books of Power

by George Hamlin Fitch

MACAULAY

The editions of Macaulay are so numerous that it is useless to attempt to enumerate them. A standard edition was collected in 1866 by his sister, Lady Trevelyan. Four volumes are devoted to the history and three to the essays and lives of famous authors which he wrote for the Encyclopedia Britannica. Macaulay's essays, which have enjoyed the greatest popularity in this country, may be found in many forms. A one-volume edition, containing the principal essays, is issued by several publishers. Sir George Otto Trevelyan's The Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay in two volumes (1876) is a more interesting biography than Lockhart's Scott. The best single-volume estimate of Macaulay is J. Cotter Morison's Macaulay in the English Men of Letters series. Good short critical sketches of Macaulay and his work may be found in Sir Leslie Stephen's Hours in a Library, volume 2, and in Lord Morley's Critical Miscellanies, volume 2.

SCOTT

The edition of Scott, which was his own favorite, was issued in Edinburgh in forty-eight volumes, from 1829 to 1833. Scott wrote new prefaces and notes for this edition. Another is the Border edition, with introductory essays and notes by Andrew Lang (forty-eight volumes, 1892-1894). The recent editions of Scott are numerous for, despite all criticisms of his careless style, he holds his own with the popular favorites of the day. Of his poems a good edition was edited by William Minto in two volumes, in 1888. The Life of Scott by his son-in-law, J.G. Lockhart, is the standard work. This was originally issued in seven volumes but Lockhart was induced to condense it into one volume, which gives about all that the ordinary reader cares for. This may be found in Everyman's library. Scott's Journal and his Familiar Letters, both edited by David Douglas, contain much interesting material. The best short lives of Scott are by R.H. Hutton in the English Men of Letters series and by George Saintsbury in the Famous Scots series. Among the best sketches and estimates of Scott are by Andrew Lang in Letters to Dead Authors; Sir Leslie Stephen in Hours in a Library; Conan Doyle in Through the Magic Door; Walter Bagehot in Literary Studies; Stevenson in Gossip on Romance and in Memoirs and Portraits, and S.R. Crockett in The Scott Country. Abbotsford, by Washington Irving, gives the best personal sketches of Scott at home.

CARLYLE

Carlyle's Essays and his French Revolution, upon which his fame will chiefly rest, are issued in many editions. It would be well if his longer works could be condensed into single volumes by competent hands. A revised edition of his Frederick was issued in one short volume. For the facts of Carlyle's life, the best book is his own Reminiscences issued in 1881 and edited by Froude, who was his literary executor with the full power to publish or suppress. Froude had so great an antipathy to what Carlyle himself called "mealy-mouthed biography" that he erred on the side of extreme frankness. In Thomas Carlyle—The First Forty Tears of His Life, Life in London and Letters of Jane Welsh Carlyle, Froude permitted the publication of many malicious comments by Carlyle on his famous contemporaries. These and morbid expressions of remorse by Carlyle over imaginary neglect of his wife caused a great revulsion of public sentiment and the fame of Carlyle was clouded for ten years. Finally, after much acrimonious controversy, the truth prevailed and Carlyle came into his own again.

Among the best books on Carlyle are Lowell's Essays, volume 2; David Masson, Carlyle Personally and in His Writings; E.P. Whipple, Essays and Reviews; Emerson, English Traits; Lowell, My Study Windows; Morley, English Literature in the Reign of Victoria; Greg, Literary and Social Judgments; Moncure Conway, Carlyle, and Henley, Views and Reviews.

Among magazine and review articles may be mentioned George Eliot in Westminster Review, volume 57; John Burroughs in Atlantic Monthly, volume 51; Emerson in Scribner's Magazine, volume 22; Froude in Nineteenth Century, volume 10, and Leslie Stephen in Cornhill, volume 44.

DE QUINCEY

It is a curious fact that the first complete edition of De Quincey's works was issued in Boston in twenty volumes (1850-1855) by Ticknor & Fields. Much of the material was gathered from English periodicals, as De Quincey was the greatest magazine writer of his age. This was followed by the Riverside edition in twelve volumes (Boston, 1877). The standard English edition is The Collected Writings of Thomas De Quincey, fourteen volumes, edited by David Masson (1889-1890). A.H. Japp wrote the standard English Life of De Quincey (London, two volumes, 1879). The best short life is Masson's in the English Men of Letters series. George Saintsbury gives a good sketch of De Quincey in Essays in English Literature. Other estimates may be found in the following works: Leslie Stephen, Hours in a Library; H.A. Page, De Quincey, His Life and Writings and in Mrs. Oliphant's Literary History of England.