17. What part of Tristram Shandy is printed as a child's book?

18. Name a novel in epistolary form by Fielding, by Smollett, by Richardson.

19. Name a famous juvenile by Goldsmith.

20. What is our first novel of English domestic life?

CHAPTER XXVIII

BRITISH FICTION-MIDDLE PERIOD

THE middle period of English fiction is one of much brilliance. Different forms of fiction for the first time come to birth. The historical novel is begun by Scott and carried on, but by no means sustained, by Ainsworth and Bulwer-Lytton. Jane Austen abandons the novel of incident for the novel of characterization. Dickens makes fiction democratic. The didactic novel comes in with Reade and Kingsley, and the novel of mystery with Collins. The Brontës introduce the tragic note into fiction, while George Eliot and George Meredith make the psychological and the philosophical novel supreme.

"The consummation of the English novel is in Meredith because in him it became a fully conscious and responsible art form. The novels of Meredith represent the adultage of the novel." -Holbrook Jackson.

The Highland Widow; The Two Drovers; The Surgeon's Daughter. 1827.

Count Robert of Paris; Castle Dangerous. 1832.

Riverside edition, 25 vols., Houghton.

Dryburgh Edition, 25 vols., Macmillan.

New Century Edition, 25 vols., Nelson.

Oxford Edition, 24 vols., Oxford. With the author's introduc

tions and notes.

Andrew Lang Edition, 25 vols., Page.

Illustrated Cabinet Edition, 48 vols., Page.

Everyman's Edition, 27 vols., Dutton.

Also volumes sold separately, and Complete Poetical Works issued in numerous editions.

Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft. Dutton.

(See also p. 298)

Scott began his literary career by writing metrical tales. "The Lay of the Last Minstrel," 1805, “Marmion," 1808, and "The Lady of the Lake," 1810, made him the most popular poet of his day. 6500 copies of "The Lay of the Last Minstrel" were sold in the first three years, a record such as poetry had never made before. His later romances in verse, "The Vision of Don Roderick," "Rokeby," "The Lord of the Isles," met with waning interest, owing to the rivalry of Lord Byron, whose more passionate poetic romances superseded Scott's in the public favor.

Scott then abandoned poetry for prose. In 1814 he published anonymously "Waverley; or Sixty Years Since," the first of his series known as the Waverley novels. Scott continued to write. anonymously for thirteen years. Twenty-five of the Waverley novels had been completed before he acknowledged his authorship of them. It is said that the snatches of verse which he used in his chapter headings finally betrayed him, for it was noted that he

quoted from every known poet except the best-known, Sir Walter Scott.

Scott brought to perfection of form the historical novel, a genre of literature which Jane Porter claimed to have originated in her "Thaddeus of Warsaw," 1803, and her "Scottish Chiefs," 1809. Scott's novels are often spoken of as semi-historical, because it is in their backgrounds that they are historical rather than in their characters. Historical characters are never the main characters in Scott's novels. It is always a fictitious character that holds the foreground. While the Waverley novels show trifling anachronisms, they are on the whole accurate. As pictures of certain times, they will stand severe historical tests; as pictures of certain historical people, they are poor likenesses.

"Tales of a Grandfather" was written by Scott for his grandchild, John Lockhart, who died. It is a juvenile that deserves to be rescued from neglect.

Dent Edition. Edited by R. Brimley Johnson. Brock's Col. Illus. 10 vols., Dutton.

Same. (English Idylls. Brock's Col. Illus.) 6 vols., Dutton. Everyman's Edition. 5 vols., Dutton.

Handy Library edition. 5 vols. Little.

Oxford Edition. Edited by R. W. Chapman. 5 vols. Oxford. New Century Edition. 3 vols., Nelson.

Also the separate novels in numerous editions.

Love and Friendship. Stokes. 1922.

The Watsons. 1871.

The Watsons. (Completed by S. Oulton). Appleton. 1923. Jane Austen wrote but six novels, not counting the recently unearthed juvenile effort "Love and Friendship" and the unfinished "Watsons," and while all are masterpieces, "Pride and Prejudice"

ranks as her best work. As the titles of the novels show, her themes are abstract. She deals not in adventures or incident but in the study of traits of character. There is nothing sensational in her plots; conversation holds a larger place than narrative. Her books are novels of manners. "Northanger Abbey" was a burlesque of Mrs. Radcliffe's "Mysteries of Udolpho," a story of haunted abbeys, which gave rise to the Horror School in fiction, the school of Mrs. Shelley's "Frankenstein," and Emily Brontë's "Wuthering Heights."

"Persuasion," the only novel by Jane Austen that contains a note of pathos, was published posthumously, together with "Northanger Abbey."

...

"There is more caste snobbishness, I think, in Jane Austen's novels than in any other novels of equal genius. She, far more than Thackeray, is the novelist of snobs. . . . Her stories are of people who reveal themselves almost exclusively in talk. She wastes no time in telling us what people and places look like.” -Robert Lynd in "Old and New Masters," Scribner.

MARRYAT, CAPTAIN FREDERICK. 1792-1848.

Complete Works. 22 vols. Dutton.

Peter Simple. 1834. Dutton, Everyman's; Funk, People's Library.

Mr. Midshipman Easy. 1836. Dutton, Everyman's; Funk, People's Library. Burt; Macmillan; Putnam.

Masterman Ready. 1841. Burt; Dutton, Everyman's; Jacobs, Fairmount Classics; Funk, People's Library.

Percival Keene. 1837. Dutton, Everyman's.

Settlers in Canada. 1844. Dutton, Everyman's.

Children of the New Forest. 1846. Dutton, Everyman's; Holt. The Little Savage. 1850. Dutton, Everyman's.

Marryat is a master of the sea tale. All his novels deal with life in the English Navy, in which he himself served all his life. His stories were written for children but are read by old and young alike. "Masterman Ready" is a story that stands next to "Robinson Crusoe" in its great popularity with boy readers. "Peter Simple" is the most autobiographic of the novels, "Mr. Midshipman Easy," the most humorous. "Percival Keene," the least estimable of his heroes, is a very melodramatic story. "The