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IX.—NOTICES OF BOOKS.
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MRS. HENRY WOOD'S DSTOVELS. The four com...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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(60 )
( 60 )
Ix.—Notices Of Books.
IX . —NOTICES OF BOOKS .
Mrs. Henry Wood's Dstovels. The Four Com...
MRS . HENRY WOOD ' S _DSTOVELS . The four completed works by tMs authoress , now in possession of
the public , sustain the impression created by her novel of " East _Lynne" that another really original mind is added to our list of
, writers . We use the word original to convey an exact and appreciative meaning . It is not the dramatic power , the poetical insight ,
the construction or development of these stories , which have gained Mrs . Wood her present position in literature ; but a singular
truthfulness , a kind of solidity of reproduction . They are what artists would call drawn from the round . And we cannot recal any living
female novelist who possesses the art in so great a degree . Miss Mulock's novels are more poetical , and every one of them bears the
clear memoirs -cut stamp of " John of her Halifax own womanl Gentleman y individualit / 7 life y -like . Even as the they famous are
, , express in every page Miss Mulock ' s ideas of a Christian hero , and her feeling and opinions about married life . The beautiful episode
of Anne Valery and Brian Harper , in " Agatha ' s Husband , " strikes the key-note of all her writing . She delights to create a world
where women are faithful and fond , and men deserve that they should be so , * and if she has to paint a male villain it is with
evident reluctance and a strong disposition to reclaim the sinner by the mother ' s , the wife ' sor the daughter ' s love . It is as a pure
, poet of no mean order that Miss Mulock has won the sympathies of the novel-reading public . It is as a hearty robust delineator of real
life that Mrs . Wood is making a reputation which bids fair to be permanent .
"East Lynne" has been so much read and criticised within the last year and a half , that any abridgment of the plot would be stale ,
flat , and unprofitable . The novel-reading world possesses two more distinct female creations , of which , however , Barbara Hare seems
to us the most original . Lady Isabel , fair , gentle , and refined as she is , is rather a typie of " lovely woman when she stoops to folly , "
than a separate fraction of erring humanity . Probably such a type best represents the kind of woman to our imagination ; with strength
of character or strength of intellect she could hardly have left Mr . Carlyle for Sir Francis Levisonunder any show of real or fancied
, provocation . If we had known lier in her happier days she would probably have been undistinguishable from a hundred daughters of
a hundred earls . Only under the ennobled aspect of a repentant sinner does she rise , just as such a character might do , into
distinctive life . But Barbara Hare is , from the first , extraordinarily
vivid , and the contradictions in her character are those of everyday
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), March 2, 1863, page 60, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_02031863/page/60/
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