nder the pseudonym "Jacob Tonson." The man responsible for the
republication is the dedicatee, who, having mysteriously demanded from me
back numbers of the _New Age_, sat in my house one Sunday afternoon and in
four hours read through the entire series. He then announced that he had
made a judicious selection, and that the selection must positively be
issued in volume form. Mr. Frank Swinnerton approved the selection and
added to it slightly. In my turn I suggested a few more additions. The
total amounts to one-third of the original matter. Beyond correcting
misprints, softening the crudity of several epithets, and censoring lines
here and there which might give offence without helping the sacred cause,
I have not altered the articles. They appear as they were journalistically
written in Paris, London, Switzerland, and the Forest of Fontainebleau.
In particular I have left the critical judgments alone, for the good
reason that I stand by nearly all of them, though perhaps with a less
challenging vivacity, to this day.

ARNOLD BENNETT

_February 1917_

CONTENTS

1908

WILFRED WHITTEN'S PROSE 3
UGLINESS IN FICTION 8
LETTERS OF QUEEN VICTORIA 11
FRENCH PUBLISHERS 16
WORDSWORTH'S SINGLE LINES 18
NOVELISTS AND AGENTS 22
THE NOVEL OF THE SEASON 26
GERMAN EXPANSION 30
THE BOOK-BUYER 32
JOSEPH CONRAD AND THE _ATHENAEUM_ 36
THE PROFESSORS 41
MRS. HUMPHRY WARD'S HEROINES 47
W.W. JACOBS AND ARISTOPHANES 53
KENNETH GRAHAME 57
ANATOLE FRANCE 59
INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY 63
MALLARME, BAZIN, SWINBURNE 65
THE RUINED SEASON 68

1909

"ECCE HOMO" 77
HENRY OSPOVAT 79
FRENCH AND BRITISH ACADEMIES 81
POE AND THE SHORT STORY 84
MIDDLE-CLASS 88
THE POTENTIAL PUBLIC 101
H.G. WELLS 109
TCHEHKOFF 117
THE SURREY LABOURER 120
SWINBURNE 123
THE SEVENPENNIES 130
MEREDITH 134
ST. JOHN HANKIN 140
UNCLEAN BOOKS