“Professor Dowden’s volume is by no means contemptible, but it is unfortunate, like most of this serial piecework, in doing again what has been better done already.”
+ – Ind. 60: 809. Ap. 5, ’06. 260w.
Downey, Edmund. [Charles Lever: his life and his letters.] 2v. *$5. Scribner.
The author of “Harry Lorrequer,” and “Charles O’Malley” contributes somewhat to his own biography, thru letters and autobiographical prefaces to early stories which primarily show him to be a “typical good fellow,” with an amount of spring in his temperament and the power of enjoying life. The social and literary man, with a warm interest in politics, was a “good husband and father; he was honest (though his sincerity was sometimes under suspicion from the rapidity of his conclusions); he was kind; but he always got through more than he earned, and the result is a record of perpetual struggle to meet the claims upon him.... His extravagance led to a growing discontent, which reached unreasonable proportions. He was incapable alike of correcting his proof-sheets and his indulgences and grew embittered, unable to keep friends with himself, as the ‘good fellow’ is expected to do.” (Ath.)
“One would think it were an impossible feat to write a dull life of such an author, and yet, we fear, it has very nearly been accomplished by Mr. Edmund Downey.”
+ – Acad. 70: 325. Ap. 7, ’06. 1770w.
“It consists of materials for such a biography, but needs ... rigorous selection. There is a fair index, but the proof-reading has not been well done.”
+ – Ath. 1906, 1: 540. My. 5. 2200w.
“On the whole the brilliant passages in these letters are much fewer than would have been expected.” H. W. Boynton.