During the last half-dozen years the
popularity of the book has apparently increased, and its twentieth year
closed with a sale of twenty-one hundred in six months. Only those who
are familiar with the book trade and who know how brief is the life of
the average novel will understand how exceptional is this
long-continued popularity.

Some of the newspaper reviewers of twenty years ago were a little
puzzled to know what to make of a book in so questionable a shape, for
the American dialect novel was then a new-comer. But nothing could have
given a beginner more genuine pleasure than the cordial commendation of
the leading professional critic of the time, the late Mr. George Ripley,
who wrote an extended review of this book for the _Tribune_. The monthly
magazines all spoke of "The Hoosier School-Master" in terms as favorable
as it deserved. I cannot pretend that I was content with these notices
at the time, for I had the sensitiveness of a beginner. But on looking
at the reviews in the magazines of that day, I am amused to find that
the faults pointed out in the work of my prentice hand are just those
that I should be disposed to complain of now, if it were any part of my
business to tell the reader wherein I might have done better.

_The Nation_, then in its youth, honored "The Hoosier School-Master" by
giving it two pages, mostly in discussion of its dialect, but dispensing
paradoxical praise and censure in that condescending way with which we
are all familiar enough. According to its critic, the author had
understood and described the old Western life, but he had done it
"quite sketchily, to be sure." Yet it was done "with essential truth and
some effectiveness." The critic, however instantly stands on the other
foot again and adds that the book "is not a captivating one." But he
makes amends in the very next sentence by an allusion to "the
faithfulness of its transcript of the life it depicts," and then
instantly balances the account on the adverse side of the ledger by
assuring the reader that "it has no interest of passion or mental
power." But even this fatal conclusion is diluted by a dependent clause.
"Possibly," says the reviewer, "the good feeling of the intertwined love
story may conciliate the good-will of some of the malcontent." One could
hardly carry further the fine art of oscillating between moderate
commendation and parenthetical damnation--an art that lends a factitious
air of judicial impartiality