A book designed to introduce Fielding as an essay writer to both college students and general readers. It contains selected essays from his novels, and some of the best work from the “Miscellanies” of 1743 and the periodicals. The text is in most cases based on the first and second editions. A biographical sketch, an introduction, full notes, and an index are provided.
“To the present volume there is prefixed an introduction ... by which we can see that the praise is lavish rather than discriminating.”
| + — | Acad. 68: 870. Ag. 26, ‘05. 1230w. |
Finerty, John Frederick. Ireland: the people’s history of Ireland. [*]$2.50. Dodd.
The first history of the Irish people “pro-Irish rather than pro-English in spirit and view” since McGee’s “History of Ireland,” three-quarters of a century ago. Mr. Finerty, the president of the United Irish league of America, aims to throw “more light in a simple and comprehensive manner on the history of that beautiful island, the blood of whose exiled children flows in the veins of not less than twenty millions of the American people.” The history, two volumes, is a very rapid survey of Ireland from the earliest period down to the career and ascendency of the fearless avenger of Irish liberty, Parnell.
[*] “Writes from that patriotic point of view, but with no obvious bias that would prevent him from being fair and trustworthy in regard to opposing views.”
| + + | Critic. 47: 190. Ag. ‘05. 80w. |
[*] “It will not do to say that his style is everywhere excellent. If Mr. Finerty had studied the history of his native land in the light of European events, the policies of England would have become intelligible to him, and the ‘People’s history of Ireland’ would have been a far more trustworthy work.” Laurence M. Larson.
| — — + | Dial. 38: 412. Je. 16, ‘05. 1230w. | |
| N. Y. Times. 10: 162. Mr. 18, ‘05. 630w. |
“The work before us, despite its prefatory promise of breadth and fair-mindedness, is itself a striking example of the way in which Irish history should not be written. In so far as the ‘political misfortunes’ of Ireland are concerned, bias prevails—the bias of a narrative constructed along pronounced pro-Catholic lines by an uncompromising sympathizer with the Irish cause. Strictly speaking, moreover, the work is not a history, but merely a chronicle in which the familiar superlatives, epithets, and errors of overstatement and understatement are painfully in evidence. There is also room for criticism from the standpoint of proportion.”