EDEN, EMILY. Miss Eden’s letters; ed. by her great niece, Violet Dickenson with introd. *$6.50 Macmillan
“To the present generation the name of Miss Eden conveys little or nothing. As the sister of Lord Auckland, who held office in the reform ministries of the early years of last century, and who became governor-general of India in 1835, she was well known in London society under William IV; and during her later life she published some novels and books of travel which were not without merit, but had not sufficient distinction to preserve them from oblivion. But her abiding claim to the notice of posterity was her talent for friendly letterwriting. Her most intimate friend, Pamela, daughter of Lord and Lady Edward FitzGerald, had an equally marked gift for talking with the pen, and perhaps greater vivacity and humour; and the correspondence between these two brilliant women is preserved in the present volume.”—Spec
Ath p1139 O 31 ’19 100w
“If she has no ideas about things in general, she has a perpetually renewed interest in the immediate; it is this, with the firm, easy texture of her style, and a delicate oddity of perception, which makes her letters so eminently readable. It is this, but something more; for of all the qualities named she is perhaps fully conscious; but she appears admirably unconscious of the qualities of heart and character she has.” F. W. S.
+ Ath p335 Mr 12 ’20 1100w
“We think that Miss Dickenson might have suppressed some of the letters as deficient in interest. But we are grateful to her for presenting us with some of the best specimens of the lost art of correspondence.”
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“She had the true note of colloquial ease which few people ever achieve in their letters, and still fewer retain. She gossips charmingly; her observations on her friends and acquaintances are not the mere threadbare inanities which can interest only those who know the persons concerned, but real characteristic illuminative things which are nearly as pleasant to read now as they were when they were written eighty or ninety years ago.”
+ Spec 124:179 F 7 ’20 600w