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  WOMEN NOVELISTS

  _Of_

  QUEEN VICTORIA'S REIGN





  Women Novelists

  _Of_

  Queen Victoria's Reign

  _A Book of Appreciations_

  By

  Mrs. Oliphant, Mrs. Lynn Linton
  Mrs. Alexander, Mrs. Macquoid, Mrs. Parr
  Mrs. Marshall, Charlotte M. Yonge
  Adeline Sergeant & Edna Lyall

  London

  Hurst & Blackett, Limited
  13 Great Marlborough Street
  1897


  _ALL RIGHTS RESERVED_

  Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.

  At the Ballantyne Press




  CONTENTS


  THE SISTERS BRONTE
      _By_ MRS. OLIPHANT                            _Page_   1

  GEORGE ELIOT
      _By_ MRS. LYNN LINTON                         _Page_  61

  MRS. GASKELL
      _By_ EDNA LYALL                               _Page_ 117

  MRS. CROWE
  MRS. ARCHER CLIVE
  MRS. HENRY WOOD
      _By_ ADELINE SERGEANT                         _Page_ 149

  LADY GEORGIANA FULLERTON
  MRS. STRETTON
  ANNE MANNING
      _By_ CHARLOTTE M. YONGE                       _Page_ 193

  DINAH MULOCK (MRS. CRAIK)
      _By_ MRS. PARR                                _Page_ 217

  JULIA KAVANAGH
  AMELIA BLANDFORD EDWARDS
      _By_ MRS. MACQUOID                            _Page_ 249

  MRS. NORTON
      _By_ MRS. ALEXANDER                           _Page_ 275

  "A. L. O. E." (MISS TUCKER)
  MRS. EWING
      _By_ MRS. MARSHALL                            _Page_ 291





  PUBLISHERS' NOTE


_Having been concerned for many years in the publication of works of
fiction by feminine writers, it has occurred to us to offer, as our
contribution to the celebration of "the longest Reign," a volume having
for its subject leading Women Novelists of the Victorian Era._

_In the case of living lady fictionists, it is too early to assess the
merit or forecast the future of their works. The present book,
therefore, is restricted to Women Novelists deceased._

_It was further necessary to confine the volume within reasonable
limits, and it was decided, consequently, that it should deal only with
Women who did all their work in Fiction after the accession of the
Queen. This decision excludes not only such writers as Lady Morgan, Mrs.
Opie, Miss Ferrier, Miss Mitford, Mrs. Shelley, and Miss Jane Porter,
who, although they died after 1837, published all their most notable
stories early in the century; but also such writers as Mrs. Gore, Mrs.
Bray, Mrs. S. C. Hall, Mrs. Trollope, Lady Blessington, and Mrs. Marsh,
who made their debuts as novelists between 1823 and 1834._

_As regards some of the last-named, it might be urged that the works
they produced have now no interest other than historical, and can be
said to live only so far as they embody more or less accurate
descriptions of Society early in the Reign. The "Deerbrook" and "The
Hour and the Man" of Miss Martineau are still remembered, and, perhaps,
still read; but it is as a political economist and miscellaneous writer,
rather than as a Novelist, that their author ranks in literature; while
of the tales by Miss Pardoe, Miss Geraldine Jewsbury, and others once
equally popular, scarcely the titles are now recollected._

_On the other hand, the eminence and permanence of the Brontes, George
Eliot, and Mrs. Gaskell are universally recognised; the popularity of
Mrs. Craik and Mrs. Henry Wood is still admittedly great; the
personality of Mrs. Norton will always send students to her works; Mrs.
Crowe and Mrs. Clive were pioneers in domestic and "sensational"
fiction; Lady Georgiana Fullerton produced a typical religious novel;
Miss Manning made pleasing and acceptable the autobiographico-historical
narrative; the authors of "The Valley of a Hundred Fires" of "Barbara's
History," and of "Adele" have even now their readers and admirers; while
"A. L. O. E." and Mrs. Ewing were among the most successful caterers for
the young._

_It has seemed to us that value as well as interest would attach to
critical estimates of and biographical notes upon, these representative
Novelists, supplied by living mistresses of the craft; and we are glad
to have been able to secure for the purpose, the services of the
contributors to this volume, all of whom may claim to discourse with
some authority upon the art they cultivate. It is perhaps scarcely
necessary to say that each contributor is responsible only for the essay
to which her name is appended._




THE SISTERS BRONTE

_By_ MRS. OLIPHANT




THE SISTERS BRONTE


The effect produced upon the general mind by the appearance of Charlotte
Bronte in literature, and afterwards by the record of her life when that
was over, is one which it is nowadays somewhat difficult to understand.
Had the age been deficient in the art of fiction, or had it followed any
long level of mediocrity in that art, we could have comprehended this
more easily. But Charlotte Bronte appeared in the full flush of a period
more richly endowed than any other we know of in that special branch of
literature, so richly endowed, indeed, that the novel had taken quite
fictitious importance, and the names of Dickens and Thackeray ranked
almost higher than those of any living writers except perhaps Tennyson,
then young and on his promotion too. Anthony Trollope and Charles Reade
who, though in their day extremely popular, have never had justice from
a public which now seems almost to have forgotten them, formed a
powerful second rank to these two great names. It is a great addition to
the value of the distinction gained by the new comer that it was
acquired in an age so rich in the qualities of the imagination.

But this only increases the wonder of a triumph which had no artificial
means to heighten it, nothing but genius on the part of a writer
possessing little experience or knowledge of the world, and no sort of
social training or adventitious aid. The genius was indeed unmistakable,
and possessed in a very high degree the power of expressing itself in
the most vivid and actual pictures of life. But the life of which it had
command was seldom attractive, often narrow, local, and of a kind which
meant keen personal satire more than any broader view of human
existence. A group of commonplace clergymen, intense against their
little parochial background as only the most real art of portraiture,
intensified by individual scorn and dislike, could have made them: the
circle of limited interests, small emulations, keen little spites and
rancours, filling the atmosphere of a great boarding school, the
Brussels _Pensionnat des filles_--these were the two spheres chiefly
portrayed: but portrayed with an absolute untempered force which knew
neither charity, softness, nor even impartiality, but burned upon the
paper and made everything round dim in the contrast. I imagine it was
this extraordinary naked force which was the great cause of a success,
never perhaps like the numerical successes in literature of the present
day, when edition follows edition, and thousand thousand, of the books
which are the favourites of the public: but one which has lived and
lasted through nearly half a century, and is even now potent enough to
carry on a little literature of its own, book after book following each
other not so much to justify as to reproclaim and echo to all the winds
the fame originally won. No one else of the century, I think, has called
forth this persevering and lasting homage. Not Dickens, though perhaps
more of him than of any one else has been dealt out at intervals to an
admiring public; not Thackeray, of whom still we know but little; not
George Eliot, though her fame has more solid foundations than that of
Miss Bronte. Scarcely Scott has called forth more continual droppings of
elucidation, explanation, remark. Yet the books upon which this
tremendous reputation is founded though vivid, original, and striking in
the highest degree, are not great books. Their philosophy of life is
that of a schoolgirl, their knowledge of the world almost _nil_, their
conclusions confused by the haste and passion of a mind self-centred and
working in the narrowest orbit. It is rather, as we have said, the most
incisive and realistic art of portraiture than any exercise of the
nobler arts of fiction--imagination, combination, construction--or
humorous survey of life or deep apprehension of its problems--upon which
this fame is built.

The curious circumstance that Charlotte Bronte was, if the word may be
so used, doubled by her sisters, the elder, Emily, whose genius has been
taken for granted, carrying the wilder elements of the common
inspiration to extremity in the strange, chaotic and weird romance of
"Wuthering Heights," while Anne diluted such powers of social
observation as were in the family into two mildly disagreeable novels of
a much commoner order, has no doubt also enhanced the central figure of
the group to an amazing degree. They placed her strength in relief by
displaying its separate elements, and thus commending the higher skill
and larger spirit which took in both, understanding the moors and wild
country and rude image of man better than the one, and misunderstanding
the common course of more subdued life less than the other. The three
together are for ever inseparable; they were homely, lowly, somewhat
neglected in their lives, had few opportunities and few charms to the
careless eye: yet no group of women, undistinguished by rank, unendowed
by beauty, and known to but a limited circle of friends as unimportant
as themselves have ever, I think, in the course of history--certainly
never in this century--come to such universal recognition. The effect is
quite unique, unprecedented, and difficult to account for; but there
cannot be the least doubt that it is a matter of absolute fact which
nobody can deny.

       *       *       *       *       *

These three daughters of a poor country clergyman came into the world
early in the century, the dates of their births being 1816, 1818, 1820,
in the barest of little parsonages in the midst of the moors--a wild but
beautiful country, and a rough but highly characteristic and keen-witted
people. Yorkshire is the very heart of England; its native force, its
keen practical sense, its rough wit, and the unfailing importance in the
nation of the largest of the shires has given it a strong individual
character and position almost like that of an independent province. But
the Brontes, whose name is a softened and decorated edition of a common
Irish name, were not of that forcible race: and perhaps the strong
strain after emotion, and revolt against the monotonies of life, which
were so conspicuous in them were more easily traceable to their Celtic
origin than many other developments attributed to that cause. They were
motherless from an early age, children of a father who, after having
been depicted as a capricious tyrant, seems now to have found a fairer
representation as a man with a high spirit and peculiar temper, yet
neither unkind to his family nor uninterested in their welfare. There
was one son, once supposed to be the hero and victim of a disagreeable
romance, but apparent now as only a specimen, not alas, uncommon, of the
ordinary ne'er-do-well of a family, without force of character or
self-control to keep his place with decency in the