Project Gutenberg's Masters of the English Novel, by Richard Burton

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Title: Masters of the English Novel
A Study Of Principles And Personalities

Author: Richard Burton

Release Date: June 25, 2004 [EBook #12736]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MASTERS OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL ***

MASTERS OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL:

A STUDY OF PRINCIPLES AND PERSONALITIES

BY RICHARD BURTON

PREFACE

The principle of inclusion in this book is the traditional one
which assumes that criticism is only safe when it deals with
authors who are dead. In proportion as we approach the living
or, worse, speak of those still on earth, the proper perspective
is lost and the dangers of contemporary judgment incurred. The
light-minded might add, that the dead cannot strike back; to
pass judgment upon them is not only more critical but safer.

Sometimes, however, the distinction between the living and the
dead is an invidious one. Three authors hereinafter studied are
examples: Meredith, Hardy and Stevenson. Hardy alone is now in
the land of the living, Meredith having but just passed away.
Yet to omit the former, while including the other two, is
obviously arbitrary, since his work in fiction is as truly done
as if he, like them, rested from his literary labors and the
gravestone chronicled his day of death. For reasons best known
to himself, Mr. Hardy seems to have chosen verse for the final
expression of his personality. It is more than a decade since he
published a novel. So far as age goes, he is the senior of
Stevenson: "Desperate Remedies" appeared when the latter was a
stripling at the University of Edinburgh. Hardy is therefore
included in the survey. I am fully aware that to strive to
measure the accomplishment of those practically contemporary,
whether it be Meredith and Hardy or James and Howells, is but
more or less intelligent guess-work. Nevertheless, it is
pleasant employ, the more interesting, perhaps, to the critic
and his readers because an element of uncertainty creeps into
what is said. If the critic runs the risk of Je suis, J'y reste,
he gets his reward in the thrill of prophecy; and should