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THE DEVELOPMENT OP A CRITICAL STANDARD FOR THE NOVEL
IN FRASER'S MAGAZINE, 1830-1850
APPROVED1
Manor Professor
Minor Professor
Consulting Professor
iO. fetzJu*, Chairman of Graduate Studies in English
DeanS>f the Graduate School
I
Lively, Cheryl L., The Development of a Critical Standard
for the Novel in Fraser8s Magazine. 1830-1850* Master of
Arts (English), December, 1972, 79 PP*# bibliography, 51 titles
This thesis is concerned with establishing the nature of
the critical standard which Eraser's Magazine. a Victorian
journal, used in evaluating the artistic merit of current
English novels. Eminent critics such as William Thackeray,
Thomas Carlyle, and William Maginn were associated with the
magazine during its early years of publication! thus, the
early numbers contain some of its most valuable criticism*
Because the English novel was in a period of transition in
the decade of the 18^0's and the years immediately preceding
and following it, this study is confined to the twenty-year,
period from I830 to 1850« Imitative writers of romance and
novels of manners were gradually being replaced with novelists
concerned with social reform and with the artistic merit of
the genre itself. Thackeray's and Maginn*s associations with
the magazine also occurred during this period, and their
literary opinions are an important indication of the magazine's
critical development.
Chapter I gives an introduction to the background of the
magazine, its founding and the critics associated with it.
Chapter II treats the phenomenon of serial publication. Since
many novels of this period were serialized, Fraser's comments
in regard to the merits and disadvantages of the form are
significant• Chapter III concerns Fraser's contribution to
the controversy over the Newgate novel, a type of criminal
historical romance popular during the late 1830*s and 18^0's*
Under Maginn and Thackeray, Fraser's was one of the most
outspoken critics of crime writing* Inconsistencies in
Fraser*s criticism are noted and explanations are attempted*
Chapter IV examines Fraser's criticism of "fashionable" novels,
in particular those of Bulwer-Lytton* Thackeray's parodies
of Bulwer*s style are given special attention* Chapter V
considers Fraser's comments on the emergent popularity of
the roman a these and the novel's concern with social reform*
The popularity of Dickens is studied* Chapter VI attempts to
define Fraser's somewhat vague standard of realism with
reference to styles of the eighteenth century and contemporary
practices of the age's leading novelists* This study finds
that Fraser's consistently judged contemporary literature
during the period of 1830-1850 from a critical standard of
realism.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF A CRITICAL STANDARD FOR THE NOVEL
IN FRASER'S MAGAZINE. 1830-1850
THESIS
Presented to the Graduate Council of the
North Texas State University in Partial
Fulfillment of the Requirements
For the Degree of
MASTER OF ARTS
By
Cheryl L* Lively, "B» A.
Denton, Texas
December, 1972
<p
& >!
o M
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter Page
I. INTRODUCTION 1
II. SERIAL PUBLICATION 18
III. THE NOVEL AND CRIMEt FRASSR'S CRITICISM OF NEWGATE LITERATURE . . . . 22
8 IV. SILVER FORKS AND THE NOVEL* Q FRASER'S-CRITICISM OF
FASHIONABLE FICTION . . . 42
V. SOCIAL REFORM AND THE NOVELi S FR.ASFP'S CRITICISM OF
| g THE ROMAN A THESE 50
VI• FRASER'S STANDARD OF REALISM . . . . . 59
g BIBLIOGRAPHY 76
% & PQ
£
GO
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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
Fraser's Magazine for Town and Country was founded in
February, 1830, by William Maginn, a magazinist, and Hugh
Fraser, a barrister who helped finance the periodical and
who lent it his name*"*" Because Hugh Fraser's association
2 with the magazine was apparently brief and somewhat unclear,'
the periodical's name is often confused with that of James
Fraser, the prosperous publisher of 215 Regent Street in
London, who printed it and whose back parlor became the
scene of many lively dinner parties of the group of bril-
liant and colorful men who came to be known as the Fraserians*
Besides the talented profligate Maginn, this group included
such illustrious contributors as Thomas Carlyle, William
Thackeray, Robert Southey, William Harrison Ainsworth,
William Jerdan, and John Lockhart, to name a few.- In
politics the magazine leaned toward progressive Toryism,
"'"For a detailed history of the early years of Fraser's Magazine, see Miriam Thrall, Rebellious Fraser's1 Nol Yorke's Magazine in the Days of Maginn. Thackeray, and Carlvie (New Yorki Columbia Univ. Press, 1934*57"
2 Sir Leslie Stephen and Sir Sidney Lee, eds., Dictionary
National Biography (Londom Oxford Univ. Press, 1921-1922}, VII, 64-a.
•^Thrall, p. 16.
conceived as it was by Maginn as a rival to the more conser-
vative Blackwood'st in tone it was rebellious, humorous, and
occasionally, slanderous* "Regina," as the periodical nick-
named itself, was an immediate popular success, boasting of
selling 8,700 copies in its first year of publication* Its
reign was a long and glorious one, from the 1830 date of its
founding to its final issue fifty-two years later in December,
1882.5
Much of the enduring brilliance of the magazine is due
to its pervasive tone of humorous intellectualism. Seeing
it along with Blackwood's and the London Magazine as fore-
runners which "shaped the chief features of our magazines
today#Miriam"Thrall' states"that "during the fifty-two
years of its existence • • • it was to be one of the most
important organs of progressive thought and open revolt in
the Victorian age*"^ In his book Victorian Wallflowers.
Malcolm Elwin remarks that "Fraser definitely supplanted the
now sobering Blackwood as the enfant terrible of the liter-Q
ary world." Remarking on contemporary reviews of novels of
the 184-0*3, Kathleen Tillotson claims that "the most interesting
^Thrall, p. 14.
5Ibid*, p. 6*
6Ibid*, p. 12.
^Ibid*, p. 6.
8 Malcolm Elwin, Victorian Wallflowers (Londont Jonathan
Cape. 1937). P* 113*
novel criticism is to be found in Fraser's.The most
enlightening comments about the general nature and the
relative merit of the periodical, however, are to be found
in the pages of the magazine itself# As profligate with
words as he was with money, Fraser's editor often indulged
in sarcastic self-praisei
Fraser's is decidedly the most witty, pungent, comic, satirical, and clever, of all the monthly periodicals • • • there is an opulence of genius, a fulness of intellectual light, in the numbers, rarely surpassed in periodical literature « • • it is replete with wit and deep thinking • • • it is everything that Blackwood wast witty, caustic, redolent in information, loyal, constitutional.*^
As the magazine's vainglorious suggestions indicate, it did
not confine its scholarly inquiries to the field of liter-
ature but commented freely upon politics, philosophy,
religion, economics, and science as well. Thrall states
that it was "reputed to have the most brilliant staff of
its time," its pages containing much of Carlyle's early
writing, including Sartor Resartus. and much of the early
critical writing of Thackeray
Fraser's spirit of satire and fun was rooted in the
personality of the magazine's controversial founder,
William Maginn. Claimed by some to be "the greatest
9 ^Kathleen Tillotson, Novels of the 1840*s (London*
Oxford Univ. Press, 1962), p. 16.
^"Parliamentary Report of the Proceedings of Fraser's Magazine. Fraser's Magazine. 13 (1836),.56-57.
^Thrall, p. 9.
magazinist of the nineteenth century, one of Its most clever
satirists, and a scholar and critic of distinction,1,12 Maginn
was seen by others to be a hopeless improvident whose
"irregular habits soon decayed his p r o s p e r i t y # B o t h
views seem to be valid. Impetuous, reckless, somewhat dis-
solute, Maginn is often thought to be the model for Captain
Shandon in Thackeray's Pendennis. "a portrait," states Elwin,
which is "hardly just to his genius but fairly faithful to
ify
his character#" Maginn was born the son of a schoolmaster
in Cork, southern Ireland, in 179^• He was considered a child
prodigy, "so precocious that he entered Trinity College,
Dublin, in his tenth year."1^ At the termination of a dis-
tinguished academic career, he received the degree of doctor
of laws at the age of twenty-four, a then unprecedented honor
in Ireland*^ At the age of twenty, upon the death of his
father, Maginn took over the direction of the family school*
He contributed to local newspapers and was termed "the leading
light of the local literary s o c i e t y * T h e real beginning
of his career as a journalist, however, came with his anonymous
contributions to Blackwood * s» Eagerly entering into the
spirit of sensationalism and vitality that characterized
the early numbers of the periodical, Maginn—known only to
12Thrall, p. 5. 13Elwin, p. 116.
l4Ibid., p. 93. 15Ibid., p. 88.
l6Ibid. 17 Ibid*, p. 89*
Blackwood by the pseudonym 'R.T.S•'--became "his Irish 18
correspondent." Elwin notes that "one of the new con-
tributor's first articles* an attack on John Leslie* the
philosopher and mathematician, evoked an action for libel
from the victim,"^ a circumstance which only served to
confirm Maginn's worth to his publisher#
Maginn profited in several ways from his association
with Blackwood's, a fact which the success of his own
periodical attests to* Recognizing the usefulness of
Blackwood's fictitious editor, Christopher North, Maginn
created the inebriated Oliver Yorke to deliver the stinging
sarcasms and, sometimes, outright slanders that colored 20
1 opinions* As Thrall observest "Without the shield
of a general pseudonym such calumnies as Fraser's dealt could
not have been filluped with so light a hand. Neither Maginn
nor any of his staff writing under an individual pen name
could have been so brutally jovial or so capricious* But
Oliver Yorke, the right ready, ingeniously sinning Oliver, 21
gave corporate safety.M Recognizing the popularity of
Blackwood's polemics, Maginn initiated literary and political
broils which made corporate safety a necessity. Thrall notes
that xn the name of Oliver Yorke • • • the country was al—
ternately chastized and cherished; individuals were unhesi-
tatingly denounced or lauded.1,22 18Elwin, p. 85« 19Ibid., p. ill.
20Ibid., pp. 111-13. 21Thrall, p. 18.
22Ibid., pp. 14-15.
During the first half of the decade of the 1830*s,
Maginn1s personal affairs, as well as the affairs of his
new magazine, provided occasions for considerable public
controversy* His wife's jealousy caused his name to be
linked scandalously with that of Letitia Elizabeth Landon,
a popular poetess who wrote under the pseudonym L«E«L«
Although Maginn was apparently innocent of any sexual en-
tanglement with the lady, the publicity given the incident
was enough to cause her suitor, John Forster, Dickens's
23
biographer, to break his engagement with her*
Thrall sees this jealous action on the part of Mrs*
Maginn, so disasterous to Letitia Landon, as a landmark in Q h
Maginn's life* Feeling himself to be the indirect cause
of Letitia's disgrace, Maginn, always somewhat profligate,
allowed himself to be overcome by debt and drink* By
October, I836, Father Prout (Francis Sylvester Mah'ony), a
prominent Fraserian, had for all practical purposes taken,
over the editorship of the magazine*2^ Ironically enough,
during this period of Rlaginn's life, spent in hiding from •
sheriff's officers and ultimately in prison for debt, he
did some of his finest writing* He continued to write for
Fraser's, as well as Blackwood *s and a liberal newspaper, 26
"the True Sun* Thrall notes his prominence as a literary 23Elwin, p* 119. Thrall, p* 198*
25Ibid* 26Elwin,' p* 122-24*
figure at this time * "When Bentlev's Miscellany was founded,
the first number, for January 1837i opened with a signed
prologue *by Doctor Maginn*, showing that, although Hook,
Dickens, and Samuel Lover were among the contributors, he was
still regarded as the most eminent of periodical writers*"2^
On August 27, 1842, Maginn's life of intemperance ended
when he died of consumption only months after the Insolvency
28
Act freed him from prison. Declaring him to be the most
"unjustly neglected of Victorian wallflowers,"2^ Elwin
states that "he is still best remembered by Lockhart's
humorously regretful epitaph."-*0
Light for long was his heart though his breeches were thinj But at last he was beat and sought help from the bin (All the same to the Doctor, from claret to gin) Which led swiftly to gaol, with consumption within* It was much, when the bones rattled loose in his skin. He got leave to die here, out of Babylon's din* Barring drink and the girls, I ne'er heard of a sim Many worse, better few, than bright broken Maginn.
Under the direction of Maginn, Fraser's ridiculed and
lampooned individuals and institutions with impunity* A
favorite literary device of the Fraserians was the burlesque,
which they directed at the idiosyncracies of friends and
enemies alike. The Right Honorable John Wilson Croker, a
Fraserian easily distinguished by his Cork brogue, his
lisp, and his tendency to be redundant, is found lamenting
in the pages of the magazine "that a demonstration was made
2?Thrall, p. 123• 28Elwin, p. 126.
29Ibid. 3°Ibid.
31Ibid., pp. 126-27.
8
against him in his own Alma Mater, Trinity College, Dublim
'The young youths in Thwinithy, Twinity I mane, meen, waw
going to thaws me in a "blanket, which show'd their bad teest.'"-^
Coleridge appears in Eraser's pages, rambling through an in-
ane monologue, complete with Abyssinian maids and Orphean
lyres and punctuated by numerous asides in which he requests
"another glass of brandy and w a t e r . C a r l y l e suffers a
similar fate, commenting in regard to Sartor Resartusi "Thank
Heavenl that mighty labour has been at last accomplished,
though in a spirit of self-sacrifice, for an ungrateful world
Fraser's teasing of its favorites was mild in comparison
to the scorn that it leveled against its enemies. In a sa-
tire entitled "The Great and Celebrated Hogg Dinner" Magi run
indulges in a favorite occupation, "Bulwer-baiting," or
attempting to incite the popular novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton
to a literary fuedi "We wave also all account of the great
and glorious procession of the literary tribe which attended
Hogg to the Freemason's Tavern. • • • The whole array was
headed and led by Mr. Thomas Campbell and Mr. Edward Liston
Bulwer, according to the precedent of the first crusading
army under the command of Walter the Pennyless, who chose
as their guides to the Holy Land a goose and a goat."^-*
^Thrall, p. 15* -^Ibid., pp. 43-44.
"Parliamentary Report," Fraser's- Magazine, p. 22.
-^[William Maginn] , "The Great and Celebrated Hogg Dinner," Eraser's Magazine. 5 (1832), 114-15. Reviewer identified by Thrall, p. 302. •
Surprisingly enough, the magazine was involved in very
few lawsuits as a consequence of its libelous tone* The
final of the three suits which James Fraser was ultimately
faced with, however, bears mentioning because of its sen-
sational nature and because it occurred near the end of
Maginn*s association with the magazine*
In August, 1836, in his characteristically insulting
manner, Maginn reviewed a fashionable novel of the Hon*
Grantley Berkeley entitled Berkeley Castle« Berkeley was
generally disliked by his contemporaries, and the objection-
able qualities of his personality as they were manifested
in his tedious prose style made him a likely subject for
Maginn*s witticisms*"' i'he magazinist was merciless in his
disparagement of the Hon* Berkeley, attacking in general the
literary fops, the "set of persons in London, who most par-
ticularly pique themselves on being men of elegance, wit,
and refinement, and who are continually declaiming against
people who are not gentlemen,and in particular the per-
son of Berkeley, claiming that the novelist's book was
"vilely written, without any other end object, or aim, but to
prove that the Lord of Berkeley was a great man once upon a
times and that if there was a lord of Berkeley now who could
prove that he was legitimate, he would be a great man again*
36Elwin, p. 121.
3^ [William Maginn], "Mr* Grantley Berkeley and His Novel," Fraser*s Magazine. Ik (1836), 242*
3®Ibid *, pp* 243"Wt
10
At times in the review, Maginn stooped somewhat un-
necessarily to slander, asserting that Berkeley's immediate
ancestry was hardly a fit subject for polite conversation,
and much less for a fashionable noveli "We are far from being
desirous to insult, as the paltry author of this book does,
the character of woman* but when matters are recorded in
solemn judgments, there can be no indelicacy in stating that
Mr* Grantley Berkeley's mother lived with Mr* Grantley
Berkeley's father as his mistress, and that she had at least
one child before she could induce the old and very stupid
lord to marry her*
Berkeley was enraged by the reviewi and inquiring in
vain of James Praser for the identity of the reviewer, the
novelist beat the publisher unmercifully with a riding-crop*^0
Maginn then challenged Berkeley to a duel, in which neither
party was seriously wounded* Fraser sued Berkeley for assaulti
Berkeley sued Fraser for libel* The outcome of the fracas
was that the publisher received 100 pounds damages and the
novelist was awarded 40 shillings*^ The suit, however,
marked the close of the magazine's riotous days under Maginn*
In poor health, in debt, and, most of the time, inebriated,
Maginn soon deserted the editorial office of the magazine
he had founded* His desertion was followed in October, 1841,
[Maginn] , "Mr* Grantley Berkeley," p. 243*
^°Elwin, p. 121*
If, i Stephen and Lee, eds*, Dictionary of Biography, p. 648*.
11
by the death of the periodical's distinguished publisher(
who expired* as one newspaper of the day put it, "after a
protracted illness, brought on, as it is supposed, by the hp
attack of Mr* G* Berkeley*"
As the vituperative nature of Maginn"s quarrel with
Berkeley might indicate, a conspicuous amount of the polemics
in Fraser's early numbers concerned contemporory literary
matters* Seeing the writers of his age as imitators of
their more vigorous forebears, Maginn repeatedly deplored
the current state of literature through the mouthpiece of
Nol Yorkei "0 let us not talk of our literature in the
present day—we have none* It is true, we have a writing
and a reading public? but the production of a work of art
is neither expected by the one, nor attempted by the other*
His attacks on current literary practices were not limited
to imitative authors but included dishonest publishers,
especially a rival firm, Golburn and Bentley, who "puffed"
their wares, that is, reviewed favorably in their periodicals
novels which they wanted to sell*
Maginn found an ally in his literary war in the person
of William Thackeray* The exact date beginning Thackeray's
apprenticeship with Fraser's is unknown, but his earliest
"The Late Mr* Fraser," Fraser's Magazine. 24 (184-1), 627, citing the London Times*
^3 J"Oliver Yorke at Home, No. IIIi A Dialogue with Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe," Fraser's Magazine. 5 (1832), 2?*
^Thrall, p. 82*
12
official appearance with, the Fraserians was in a cartoon by
Maclise in the number for January, 1835* Ray states, how-
ever, that this appearance should not be taken as an indi-
cation that Thackeray was actively contributing to the magazine
at that time*^ In November, 1837, the first work bearing
the pseudonym Yellowplush appeared* Various speculations
have been made about Thackeray's possible authorship of arti-
46
cles previous to that date, but the evidence is inconclusive*
Despite the libelous nature of some of Maginn's and
Thackeray's literary criticism, Fraser's contribution to *
the age's search for literary standards was not all satire
and personalities* Thrall states that "probably Fraser's
greatest service, sometimes too ostentatiously declared, was in the occasional introduction of esthetic theory into its
47
reviews•" The esthetic theory of the magazine, for the
most part, reflected the views of Carlyle and Coleridge,
and emphasized these men's indebtedness to German transcen-
dentalism. Even Maginn, more adept at satire than at meta-
physics, sometimes referred to the "creative imagination.
Thrall notes that "all told, there were approximately eighty
articles which show the influence, however distorted, of
some phase of transcendental ethics or metaphysics*
ij.C . x- v , G o r d a n w* Ray. Thackeray: The Uses of Adversity (1811*
18^6) (New York» McGraw-Hill Book Co., inc., 1955)• p* I69T
^Thrall, p. 55. ^Ibid*, p. 88*
^8Ibid* ^Ibid*
13
Under the able leadership of Carlyle, Fraser's did much to
spread the ideas of German literature and philosophy in
England*
Nowhere is the critical acumen of Fraser's under the
editorship of Maginn more evident than in its support of
certain nineteenth-century literary figures who were rela-
tively unnoticed by their contemporaries but who have been
recognized at length to be leading spokesmen for and thinkers
of their age* Fraser's championed Wordsworth, Coleridge,
and Shelley at times when they were neglected by other
critics.-*0 Thrall calls the magazine's admiration for
Robert Browning, who with the publication of Paracelsus
was yet an untried and unmarked genius, its "most brilliant
instance of prognostic criticism*
Thus the journal, reflecting as it did the personality
and political and literary views of its brilliant and ec-
centric editor, came to be regarded as a forerunner of the
wave of reform in politics and literature that was to sweep
England in "the great Victorians' protest against Liberalism."^2
Although the libelous tone of the magazine mellowed some-
what when Maginn abandoned his position as editor, the forth-
right spirit that characterized the periodical's early days
remained with it for some time, bolstered and amplified by
some of the best minds of the age.
50 Ibid., p. 95. ^Ibid*, p. 97*
52Ibid., p. 123*
Ik
After the death of James Fraser in 184-1 and the death
of William Maginn in 184-2, the editorship of Fraser's
Magazine was ultimately taken over by the leaders of the
Broad Church movementG» W. Nickisson, successor to
Fraser*s publishing concern, continued publishing the maga-
zine until, in 1847, its publication was assumed by John
W. Parker of West Strand*^ There was a period of roughly
ten years from Maginn's desertion of the periodical's edi-
torial position in 1836 to the Broad Church movement's as-
sumption of it in 184-7; during this time the policy of the
magazine was determined by the combined efforts of the re-
maining Fraserians, led by Father Prout* Percival Weldon
Banks, a Fraserian who also directed the Carlton Chronicle.
remarked in the October 1, I836, issue of the Chronicles
"Of late he jthe fictitious Nol Yorke) might be generally
described as Proutianj but look on him for any length of
time, and you will find that he is Protean*"^5
Even though the magazine was in new hands, however, in
the period of the 1840*3 and thereafter, the policies and
attitudes which Miriam Thrall has pointed out as characteristic
of the early years of Nol Yorke's reign remained evident
long after Maginn and Fraser relinquished "Regina's" throne.
The period of the 184-0*s is a particularly significant one
^?Thrall, p. 6» 54-
Stephen and Lee, eds., Dictionary of Biography, p. 64-8* 55Thrall, p. 198.
15
in regard to the magazine's literary opinions. An examination
of the direction of Fraser's criticism during this decade
offers excellent support for Kathleen Tillotson's statement
that at this time "critics began to say what they continued
to say more forcibly for the next forty years or so, that the
novel was the form of expression most suited to the age • • •
that it had become what the epic and the drama had been in
previous ages."-^ Consistent with Maginn's maxim that liter-
ature should be "true to life," Fraser's novel reviews of the
late 1830's, the 1840's, and the early I850*s can be seen as
serious attempts to establish a critical standard from which
to judge the novel genre*
At the foundation of Fraser's critical posture was the
conviction that the novel should assume the responsibility
of upholding and examining moral standards. This idea is
expressed throughout the reviews of the period, but one of
the clearest statements of it occurs in January, 1850, in
a castigation of Bulwer-Lytton's "reactionary epicureanism."
"But of one thing we can warn him [Bulwer-Lytton}—that the
possession of such capabilities as his involves a terrible
and yet most blessed responsibility; that the novel, how-
ever charlatans may degrade it, and the lazy world love
to have it degraded, is in idea, next to drama, the highest
56Tillotson, p. 13.
16
organ of moral teaching, and in practice just"now a far
more powerful one« M^ Yet Fraser's also insisted that the
novel must maintain an artistic integrity* In a review en-
titled "Charles Dickens and David Copperfield." December,
1850, Dickens is taxed with allowing the zealous fervor of
his attack on the New Poor Law to interfere with the artistry
of his works "In • • • Oliver Twist« the monster marked out
for attack was the New Poor Law. This ulterior object
was so apparent, that the effect of the tale was in some
degree marred.
In December, 1847, G. H. Lewes*s review, "Recent Novels*
French and English," touched on the crucial issue of Fraser's
literary standard for the novel, the suggestion that realism
in the "delineation of life and character" could preserve
both the novel's artistic and its moral integrity1 "What we
most heartily enjoy and applaud, is truth in the delineation
of life and character1 incidents however wonderful, adven-
tures however perilous, are almost as naught when compared
with the deep and lasting interest excited by any thing
like a correct representation of life* That indeed, seems
to us to be Art, and the only Art we care to applaud."**9
->?"Sir E. B. Lytton and Mrs. Grundy," Fraser's Magazine. 41 (1850), 111.
-^"Charles Dickens and David Copperfield." Fraser's Magazine. 42 (1850), 701.
59[G. H« LewesJ , "Recent Novels 1 French and English," Fraser's Magazine, 36 (1847), 687* Reviewer identified by Tillotson, p. 7, n. 2.
17
Fraser's insistence upon "truth in writing" was an ex-
ceptional critical stance in the literary milieu of the late
I830*s and the early 1840*s* The periodical was at odds with
many of the critics and most of the novelists of the time*
Maginn's derision of popular schools of novel writing in
general reached its scornful peak when it was directed at
specific popular artists, most notably Bulwer-Lytton* His
objections were clarified by Thackeray# who molded Fraser's
somewhat nebulous propositions into clear, decisive arguments
for reform in literature* From the late 1830's until the
early 1850*s» Fraser's novel criticism* controlled by the
literary perspicacity of two of the finest critics of the
age, heralded a change in the popular perspective* In the
place of the novels of Bulwer-Lytton, Harrison Ainsworth,
and numerous minor novelists, the novels of Dickens and
Thackeray assumed the wholehearted support of the English
reading public* A close study of the events leading to
the acceptance of the novels of these two Victorian spokes-
men will indicate that Fraser's opinions in literary matter's
did much to advance their cause*
CHAPTER II
SERIAL PUBLICATION
By the 184-0's, the increasing popularity of the method
of serial publication occasioned a number of reviews in
Fraser's which focused attention on the relationship of
form and content in the novel. Unlike the usual thre&-> two-,
or occasionally! one-volume novel editions* the magazine
serial and the part issue were relatively inexpensive* and
therefore, accessible to many more peopleHowever, the
financial advantages of the form were seriously offset by
its artistic''limitations* Taccd'with the necessity"of
writing for a deadline and structuring the tale in a way
which would engage the reader's curiosity until the ap-
pearance of the next serialized excerpt, many novelists
resorted to literary practices which critics regarded as
"cheap tricks*"
Eraser's was fair but outspoken in its assessment of.
serialized fiction* Its earliest remarks were disparaging*
In April, 184-0, a critic took Dickens to task, insisting
that his chief fault was "to make hay while the sun shines*H^
"We wish him well," Eraser's went on, "but talking of lit-
erature in any other light than that of a hack trade, we
"^Tillotson, pp. 22-2?*
2 "Charles Dickens and His Works." Praser's Magazine. 21
(184-0), *00.
1 Q
19
do not like this novel-writing by scraps against time. He
can never do himself or his readers justice* • • • With this
we bid not good speed, but good moderation of pace* and we
trust that, since Master Humphrey has set up a clock, he will
henceforward take time*"^
A stronger statement against serial publication occurred
in a review of Harrison Ainsworth's Tower of London, February,
1841. Here the reviewer referred to the common practice of
ending a serial installment with a moment of suspense, dramatic
enough to entice the reader to buy another issues "We hate
all serials, as it is the nasty conceit now to call these
dis.iecta membra librorum* Under this system inferior wares
are entailed upon the ' public f'befrausfc'by it their authors
are corrupted* It induces carelessness, and tempts to the
indulgence of clap-trap for stage effect, or the less generous
motive to insure the sale of a subsequent number* 'At this
moment her lamp was extinguished?* 'Geraldine fell on the life-
less body of her father?* 'Lucinda yielded at length to
Ruggiero's violence, when—
The chief objection that Fraser's seems to have had to
the serialized novel was that the artistic integrity of the
work was often sacrificed by the author to the demands of the
novel-reading public for a story which would warm the heart
3Ibid*
k "The Tower of London," Fraser's Magazine. 23 (1841),
1?0.
20
or render popular Justice. Fraser's did not confine its
comments in this respect to English novels. In December,
184?, in a review entitled "Recent Novels* French and English,'
the critic laid the chief defects of Balzac's novel Le Cousin
Poins—the distortion of the work by too many sensational
details—at the altar of serial publication* "The newspaper
readers, doubtless, got impatient at the calm painting and
minute detail of the earlier portion* they were clamorous
for more 'exciting* incidents. To satisfy them, Balzac dis-
torted his work* he added the fish's tail to the woman's
breast, having no fear of Horace and the Ars Poetica."^
In January, 1851, Thackeray was accused of interpreting
the decline in sales of Pendennis at the point of the Fanny
Bolton incident as an indication that he had offended English
prudery and of, consequently, altering the story to increase
its sale*^
Thackeray, himself, in a review of Dickens's A Christmas
Carol, made Fraser's most positive statement about the serial-
ized form of novel publication. Recognizing the defects, the
artistic ineptitude which serialization encouraged, he yet
applauded the rapport which the form established between
author and reader.
vea«f °"S £,r' Dicl«ns since those half-dozen years, the store of happy hours that he has made us pass,
36 (lW?Ke6n95.NOVelS' P r e n 0 h 3 n d E n« l i s h'" eraser's Magazine.
Bell-B"La r i^^C^S y. aS d Artl?ur Pendennis. Esquires. Robert
se.u. s Ladder of Gold." Fraser's Magazine. 43 (1851), 86.
21
the kindly and pleasant companions whom he has intro-duced to usi the harmless laughter, the generous wit, the frank, manly» human love which he has taught us to feelI Every month of those years has brought us some kind token from his delightful genius• His books may have lost in art, perhaps, but could we afford to wait? Since the days when the Spectator was pro-duced by a man of kindred mind and temper, what books have appeared that have taken so affectionate a hold of the English public as these? They have made mil-lions of rich and poor happyi they might have been locked up for nine years, doubtless, and pruned here and there and improved (which I doubt), but where would have been the reader's benefit all this time, while the author was elaborating his performance? Would the communion between the writer and the public have been what it is now,—something continual, con-fidential,. something like personal affection?'
Thackeray's positive comments about the form were an
indication that the magazine had modified its general con-
demnation of "all serials" considerably* Quick to point
out the defects of the system, the magazine nonetheless
recognized its merits* Fraser's entered the serial novel
market itself, its most notable serialization being Kingsley's *
highly controversial social manifesto Yeast* Confronted
with the obvious fact that the popularity of the serial
novel insured its existence for some time, Fraser's critics
directed their efforts at other literary matters• They
abandoned the relatively insignificant question of form
and took up instead the question of content and stylei
launching a rollicking, .yet serious war on the literary
tastes of the novel-reading public*
(William Thackeray}. "A Box of Novels*" Fraser's Magazine. 29 (1844), I67.
CHAPTER III
SHE NOVEL AND CRIME«
FRASEH'S CRITICISM OP NEWGATE LITERATURE
Praser's conviction that the novel had assumed the position
of "the highest organ of moral teaching" accounts in part for
its concern with a kind of novel which was immensely popular
during the 1830*s and 1840*s« The crime novel* or Newgate
novel as it came to he called, looked to Defoe and Fielding .
for its literary precedent! yet, as Hollingsworth has pointed
out in his book The Newgate Novel, the criminal studies popu-
lar in the 1830' n stM 1840• s were oriented in a different
direction from their eighteenth-century counterparts! "The
new books were not merely repetitions* Although Jonathan
Wild was a narrative about an eighteenth-century gangster*
its real subject was the 'greatness1 of men great in the
eyes of the world; the new books found interest in the
criminal himself#
Fraser's disapproval of Newgate literature was both
consistent and persistent! yet, characteristically, its
comments were so colored by personal affronts to various
authors engaged in crime writing that scholars who review
^Keith Hollingsworth, The Newgate Novel, 1830-1847 (Detroiti Wayne State Univ. Press, 1963),pp. 15-167
22
23
them are inclined to weigh the personalities more heavily
than the principles* Under Maginn and later Thackeray»
Fraser's assumed the position of chief critic of the Newgate
2
novel among Victorian periodicals* Primarily, Fraser's
objected to the inimical effect that the popular championing
of crime and criminals might have on society* The exaltation
of a criminal into a hero represented a social threat of a
serious nature to Maginn and his followers* A second impor-
tant objection to the Newgate literature of this period was
that it inclined toward intense melodrama. Believing as he
did that literature should be "true to like," Maginn felt
obligated to point out the vast difference between a realistic
representation of the life of whatever notorious criminal
was in question and the typical crime writer's version of that
life.
Maginn's attack on the Newgate novel began in the first
year of Fraser*s publication as a personal attack on Edward
Bulwer-Lytton—one which Hollingsworth claims Bulwer himself
provoked by characterizing Maginn as Peter MacGrawler in his
novel Paul Clifford, a "pot-house scribe who goes down in the
world, from editorship to picking pockets*"^ The third num-
ber of the magazine, April, 1830, carried a review of
"Fashionable Novelswhich dealt with some works of Bulwer-
Lytton, including Paul Clifford* The reviewer condemned the
2Ibid*, p. 16.
^Ibid., p* 78.
24
moral of Clifford; Bulwer had allowed a criminal to be rewarded 4
in the end, as if he had been a virtuous man* Michael
Sadleir, in his sympathetic biography of Bulwer-Lytton, notes
that the reviews of Pelham, The Disowned, and Devereux. Mler
gitimate if rather unfavorable criticism, contained "hints
of what was to come—the charges of plagiarism, cheap histrion-
ics and frenetic egoism."^ In January, 1832, Fraser*s became
more specifically concerned with Bulwer-Lytton's intention to
popularize the Newgate theme with his publication of the account
of the life of Eugene Aram. A letter from a fictitious reader,
Prank Freeman, was published and replied to by Nol Yorkei
Dear Yorke, As the great Mecaenas of the age, I think it right
you should know that your friend Liston Bulwer has just hit upon a new line of business. His 'fancy flash* a reference to Bulwer's fashionable novels having proved an unmarketable commodity, he has discovered that his genius lies one degree lowerf and, therefore, most prudently has he resolved upon doing the. NEWGATE CALENDAR into a series of 'fashionable novelst *7
Nol Yorke replied to the letter with a verse, suggesting that
Bulwer-Lytton committed as great a crime by writing novels as
Aram did by killing men and prophesying the novelist's doom
under Fraser's critical attacks!
^Ibid., p. 81.
^Michael Sadleir, Bulweri A Panorama (Bostoni Little, Brown, and Co., 1933)» p. 234.
6Ibid.
70. Y. { Oliver Yorkei, Preface to the January, 1832, Issue, Fraser*s Magazine. 5 (1832), no page number.
25
E. Aram killed a man one day, Out of a devilish whim*
E. Buiwer did almost the same— A deed well nigh as grimi
For Aram he murder*d Daniel Clarke, And Bulwer he murder'd him.
E. Aram's crime it was impell'd That cash he might purloin}
E. Bulwer did his wickedness For love of Colburn's coini
Alas! that money should debauch Two geniuses so fine!
E. Aram he was sent to jail, And hanged upon a tree;
E. Bulwer is in Parliament, A shabby-genteel M. P.;
But if he writes such murdering books, What must his ending be?
Why, that in Fraser's Magazine His gibbet we shall see*®
In February, 1832, a formal review of Eugene Aram ap-
peared. Bulwer-Lyi ton and his biographer probably
offended by the unjustified scurrility of some of the typical
comments 1 "In our last Number, we admitted the sportive
correspondence of a friend, announcing Bulwer's intention
to novelise the Newgate Calendar, knowing nothing then of
our own knowledge of his Eugene Aram, but believing such
an employment well suited to the capacity of a man who can-
not invent, and concluding, from his former productions,
that the personages introduced in that venerable repository
were more congenial with his taste than higher and more
refined topics."9 However, the personalities concealed, or
8Ibid.
9 [William Maginn], "A Good Tale Badly Told By Mr. Edward Lytton Bulwer," Fraser's Magazine. 5 (1832), 107. M. Thrall identifies reviewer, p« 304*
26
perhaps made more palatable to Fraser*s readers# the periodi-
cal's serious principles regarding crime writing and the
novel in general*
Owing him [Bulwer-Lytton] no courtesy, having no hook connection to subserve, and pressed with original matter of more sterling stuff, we should not have adverted to this novel at all, had not a sense of our obligation to propagate the principles we advocate, and denounce those we condemn, constrained us to the by no means pleasing task-10
A good story overlaid with tinselled frippery, spun out into tedious dialogue and vapid declamation, is to a sound taste in writing as unpleasant as is a glass of curacoa diluted in a pint of water to an unvitiated palate*11
The records of crime establish this fact, that on the perpetration of any novel or unusual crime there ensues a sequence of similar offences* The miserable wretches who bartered human life for sordid gain • • • con-fessed that the report of the atrocities at Edinburgh first suggested their own* Where ignorance is inno-cence, great is his responsibility who imparts guilty knowledge 112
This review of Bulwer-Lytton contained the rudiments
of critical principles regarding Newgate literature that
Maginn and Thackeray were to amplify as their immensely
popular attack on crime writing progressed# In his bio-
graphy of Bulwer-Lytton, Michael Sadleir maintains that
Fraser's "savage" criticisms of the novelist were oc-
casioned by Maginn*s personal animosity toward him, an
animosity which Sadleir insists involved political af-
filiations, but "centered around the person of that mys-
terious young woman poet Letitia Landon.According to
10[Maginn], "A Good Tale Badly Told," p. 10?.
UIbid. 12Ibid., p. 112. 13Sadleir, p. 228.
27
Sadieir» L*E*L* preferred the company of Bulwer-Lytton to
that of Maginn, and in a jealous rage, Maginn underhandedly
attacked the writing of a man whom he could not reasonably ill
attack any other way. Hollingsworth, too, suggests that
the Newgate controversy was motivated by personal reasons
rather than reasons of principle! "The controversy, ostensi-
bly always about propriety or morals, began as a quarrel and
too seldom rose above that level• It was obscured from the
start by personal and political antagonisms, so that one
must try to disentangle mere reprisal from opposition born
of conviction*
However, despite the emphasis on personalities which
the reviews-'contains' FrgwiMr'q cojssw'irtts'- th.9 "novel 1st'*s '
artistic and social responsibility are serious ones* The
immense popularity of these novels probably made them
to criticism of a didactic nature* The weapons that Maginn
raised against them, slander and satire, were popular in
their own right, and perhaps, were the only effective means
to reach a relatively undiscriminating reading public* Even
Bulwer-Lytton*s sympathetic "biographer admitted that the
popularity of Eugene Aram was no indication of its literary
excellence* "Undeniably, Bulwer'a perpetual tendency to over-
write declares itself in exaggerated form throughout the
book* • * • Excited with the flattery which followed Paxil
Clifford and with a natural ambition this time to go one
14 Ibid*, p. 229* ^Hollingsworth, p* 16*
28
better, he was tempted to out-Bulwer Bulwerj tormented by
grinding work of every kind and by the nagging malice of
his enemies, he sought self-assertion in an over-straining
of his natural magniloquence •
In attempting to establish a critical standard for the
novel, Maginn recognized that Bulwer-Lytton and the popular
demand for his "natural magniloquence" were enemies to the
advancement of a realistic and socially responsible form*
Consequently, he confronted "Bulwerism" with his keenest and
most scathing wit* In August and September, 1832, Fraser's
parodied Eugene Aram with a satire called "Elizabeth
Brownrigge*" The tale, which closely imitated Bulwer's
baroque style arid his passion for melodrama, was published
anonymously and was attributed to Thackeray for some time.
However, Thrall has made an excellent case for Maginn and
Lockhart as the probable authors, and her opinion is general-
ly accepted by contemporary critics
The story is prefaced by a dedication to the author of
Eugene Aram; the storyteller purports to imitate him in ex-
pectance of a similar success. The satire closely parallels
Aram, effectively destroys any claim to serious literature
that Bulwer-Lytton might have made through Aram, but has
^Sadleir, p. 246.
17 See Thrall, pp. 63-64 for a detailed analysis of the
probable authorship of "Elizabeth Brownrigge."
29
1 ft
little literary merit of its own. Even if the parody was
the result of personal animosities between Maginn and the •
novelist as both Hollingsworth and Sadleir insist ("the
ostensible issue—the morality of Bulwer's novels—had been
left behind as the quarrel progressed"^)• the soundness of
Maginn*s critical judgment in matters of style and literary
taste is nonetheless undamaged. Eugene Aram was undeniably
writing of a sensational nature, calculated to capitalize
on the public demand for criminal studies#
The effectiveness of Fraser's censorship can perhaps be
gauged by the fact that Bulwer-Lytton's next novel, Godolphin*
a novel of fashionable life, was published anonymously*
Claiming that the periodical's harsh treatment had shattered
the author's confidence, Sadleir states that "Fraser's. with
the cruel perceptiveness of a clever enemy, detected • • •
[Bulwer's motive for anonymity] and pounced upon it. 'Bulwer
is obliged to sneak into the market in a mask,' wrote the
editor in his June number, 'and to suppress his name in the
hope that its absence may contribute to the sale of Godolphin*
This is an alteration with a vengeance for which the reading
public ought to be infinitely obliged to us.'"^®
In 183^, another author, this time a Fraserian and a
friend of William Maginn, entered the Newgate school of
writing. Harrison Ainsworth published Rookwood. an account
of the life and times of a notorious highwaymann, Dick Turpin.
"^Thrall, p. 63 • ^Hollingsworth, p. 97.
^°Sadleir, pp. 283-84.
30
It is probably the fact that Maginn reviewed Rookwood favor-
ably, even enthusiastically, that partially accounts for his
critics* accusations that the attacks on Bulwer-Lytton were
motivated by personal reasons and were not indications of any
serious moral objections against the Newgate novel* However,
Maginn*s support of his young friend at this time does not
clearly reflect Fraser's attitude* Soon severing his ties
with the magazine, Maginn was succeeded in Newgate criticism
by Thackeray, who allowed no personal regard for a fellow
Praserian to interfere with his moral obligations. Fraser's
spokesman in literary matters for some time, Thackeray sur-
passed even Maginn, laying waste to the reputations of the
crime novels of Bulwer-Lytton and Ainsworfch alike•
Two favorable reviews of Rookwood appeared in Fraser's,
however, before Thackeray's succession* The first, "High-Ways
and Low-Ways? or Ainsworth's Dictionary, with Notes by Turpin,"
June, 183^, was probably written by Jack Churchill, whom
Thrall identifies as "Maginn's special aide."21 The review
compared Ainsworth's style to Bulwer-Lytton*s, claiming that 22
the former was more realistic. The second review, "Another
Caw From the Rookwood." April, I836, celebrated the third
edition of Ainsworth's exceedingly popular novel. The reviewer,
William Maginn, treated the Newgate subject and the subject 21 Thrall, p. 71.
[jack Churchill} , "High-Ways and Low-Ways 1 or Ainsworth's Dictionary, with Notes by Turpin," Fraser's Magazine. 9 (1834). 735* The reviewer identified by Thrall, td. 22o7
31
of the English and American .demand for Rookwood with great
levityi "Any one initiated into the secrets of the book- .
trade must be aware, that copies of the Newgate Calendar are
in constant and steady request throughout President Jackson*s
dominionst most families being anxious to possess that work
from motives connected with heraldry and genealogical science*
It is the same pardonable weakness that secures among us the
sale of Mr* Burke's Peerage and Commoners* We all wish,
naturally enough, to see the names of our relatives in print*
The fact that Maginn waived principles, in regard to
Ainsworth's crime novel,, that he insisted upon in regard to
Bulwer-Lytton's may not depend solely on his partiality for
the former. Possibly, Maginn saw a real difference between
the two authors* treatments of criminal heroes, one which
exonerated Ainsworth, but not Bulwer, from the charge of
fostering crime* Maginn, and even Ainsworth himself, con-
ceived of Rookwood as a romance in the Gothic tradition of
Mrs* Radcliffe* Ainsworth's biographer, S* M* Ellis, remarks
on the novel's "quaint originality and extreme unconvention-
ality—the blending of the natural with the supernatural,
the sober realities of everyday life combined with the fan-
tastic imaginings of weird romance *"2^ The novel was also
distinguished by Ainsworth's sense of humor and his relatively
2^[william Maginn], "Another Caw From the Rookwood." ^ra^f r f l%gazine, 13 (1836) , ^89. The reviewer identified by Thrall, p. 302*
2 If, S* M* Ellis, William Harrison Ainsworth and His Friends
(New York1 John Lane Co., 1911), I, 255! ;
32
unaffected style* Ellis states that Rookwood represented
a reaction to the "'Tales of Fashionable Life,' wherein inane
heroes named Mortimer or Mordaunt, in the intervals they
could spare from Crockford's, made vapid love to the Lady
Julia De Vere or her French maid,"^the kind of novels Bulwer-
Lytton delighted to produce and Maginn delighted to deride*
Even if Ainsworth's novel was guilty of romanticizing crime,
it was not guilty of some of Bulwer's more glaring stylistic
affectations* Calling to mind the highwaymen of Moll Flanders
and Tom Jones. Ainsworth's Turpin combined those qualities
of humor and dashing gallantry which made him a much dif-
ferent figure from Bulwer Lytton's murderer, Aram* Of all
the contemporary periodicals that reviewed Ainsworth's novel
as it went through its several editions, none expressed con-
cern that Ainsworth's dramatization of Turpin would lead
impressionable readers to crime*
In 1836, after the appearance of Paul Clifford. Eugene
Aram, and Rookwood in the Newgate market, Maginn left the
literary opinions of his periodical to his more consistent
successor* Unlike Maginn, Thackeray found no redeeming
qualities in the gaisty and gallantry of Ainsworth's highway-
man. A more exacting critic than Maginn, Thackeray found
Ainsworth's crime novels even more disgusting than those of
Bulwer-Lytton because they lacked Bulwer's serious intent*27
^Ibid*, pp. 255-56* ^Hollingsworth, p* 109*
27Thrall, p. 71.
33
Ostensibly Bulwer wrote to expose the injustice of England's
criminal law, a purpose which was consistent with Fraser*s
concern for social reform. Although Thackeraiy was offended
"by the novelist's style and subject, he recognized some
merit in the attempt to right a social wrong* Ainsworth's
intent in Rookwood—"I had, throughout, an eye rather to the
reader's amusement than his edification* • • • The chief
object I had in view, was to see how far the infusion of a
warmer and more genial current into the veins of Old Romance
28
would succeed in reviving her fluttering and feeble pulses"
he deemed morally reprehensible*
Thackeray began his assault on the Newgate novel in
March, 1838, in a review of popular penny journals called
"Half-A-Crown's Worth of Cheap Knowledge*" A sequel to that
review, "Horae Catnachianae," was published in April, l$39l
it dealt with popular criminal ballads. In these reviews,
the latter one more specifically, Thackeray took Bulwer-
Lytton, Dickens, and Ainsworth to task for their sentimen-
talized versions of the lives of the lower classesi "Depend
upon it, that Shire Lane does not in the least degree re-
semble Mr. Dickens's description of that localityt that the
robber's den in Pelham. or the Bath rendezvous of the thieves
in Paul Clifford, are but creations of the fancy of the
honourable baronet who wrote those popular novels, and who
28Ellis, p. 286.
34
knows as much about low life as he does about.German meta-
physics • "2^
Thackeray singled out Fielding as the only novelist
who dealt with crime effectively, comparing the realistic
portrait of Jonathan Wild to Dickens's less believable Jew,
Fagin. "Catnachianae" ends with an appeal for a literature
which represents life realistically and which does not em-
phasize crime unproportionatelyi "Here is Mr. Dickens about
to blaze upon the world with a new novel* may we hear no
more of thieves and slang* Here is Mr* Ainsworth gathering
up the ribands of Bentlev's Miscellany, and driving a tri-
umphant journey with 'Jack Sheppardi* we wish it were Jack
Anybody else• Gentlemen and men of genius ray amuse themselves
with such rascals, but not live with them altogether. The
public taste, to be sure, lies that way; but these men
should teach the public."-'0
Thackeray's later articles in regard to specific writ-
ers of the Newgate school elaborate on the themes introduced
in these early reprovals. In February, 1840, Ainsworth re-
ceived his first serious critical lashing from Fraser's in
a review entitled "William Ainsworth and Jack Sheppard."
Expressing regard for Ainsworth and respect for his talent,
M f9CwiJ-liam Thaelceray3 * "Horae Catnachianae," Fraser's Mag|gine, 19 (1839), 407. The reviewer identified by Thrall,
3°Ibid., p. 424.
35
Thackeray declare/? that "we like not this gallows school of
literature•m3^ He recalls a review which appeared in March*
1834, of Whitehead's Lives and Exploits of English Highwaymen#
Pirates. and Robbers. wherein he had expressed Fraser's con-
tempt for the popular exploitation of crime» "Can we single
out the solitary culprit for condemnation, without even a
passing censure on those who pampered the vanity which per-
petuated his determination to crime?"32 Declaring Ainsworth
guilty of perpetuating crime by "investing the low ruffians
of the Newgate Calendar, and their profligate companions,
with all the interest and graces of romance,w33 Thackeray
once again recalls Fielding's realistic portrait of Jonathan
Wild• "By keeping close to the true story," Thackeray asserts
with Fielding in mind, Ainsworth might "not only have pointed
a better moral, but have more adorned his tale»"*^
Thrall mentions the significance of the fact that
Ainsworth's novel was not reviewed concurrently with its
serialization in Bentlev's Miscellany in 1839»3-* Percival
Banks, a prominent Fraserian, had made an offer to Ainsworth
to review Jack Sheppard. claiming that he was "anxious that
it should succeed, and the more especially because I find
3 1 (williara Thackeray^, "William Ainsworth and Jack Sheppard." Fraser's Magazine. 21 (184-0), p. 227. Reviewer identified by Thrall, p. 296.
32Ibid., p. 228. 33Ibid.
3/fIbid», p. 238» 3^Thrall, p. ?2«
36
certain of the dunces and blackguards are against you.
Apparently Thackeray's "blackguard" influence was stronger
than Banks's intention to adhere to the attitude of friendly
levity that Maginn had evinced in Ainsworth's case* Instead
of a review, Thackeray's serialized burlesque crime novel#
Catherine. began its parallel run in Fraser's not long after
Ainsworth's Shetroard started appearing in Bentlev1s Miscellany•
In his final installment of February, 1840, the satirist
again denounced Ainsworth's sentimental representation of
crimei
Mr* Turpin's adventures are more instructive and agreeable to him in the account of the Newgate Plutarch. than in the learned Ainsworth's Biographical Dictionary* and as he believes that the professional gentlemen who. are em-ployed to invest ouch heroes v.lth the rewards thai" their great actions merit, will go through the ceremony of the grand cordon with much more accuracy and dispatch than can be shewn by the most distinguished a mateuri in like manner he thinks that the history of such investiture should be written by people directly concerned, and not by admiring persons without, who must be ignorant of many of the secrets of ketchcraft*-"
Dickens, too, received his due in the final chapter of
Catherine * Calling for a more judicious expenditure of
public sympathy, Thackeray assertedi
No man has read that remarkable tale of Oliver Twist without being interested in poor Nancy and her murderert and especially amused and tickled by the gambols of
36£llis, p. 375-
•^Isaac Solomons,Jr* (William Thackeray}, "Catherine* A Story," Fraser's Magazine. 21 (1840), 219* (Thackeray refers to himself in the third person in the review*)
37
the Artful Dodger and his companions. * * * We had better pass them by in decent silence{ for, as no writer can or dare tell the whole truth concerning them, and faithfully explain their vices, there is no need to give ex-parte statements of their virtues*
And what came of Oliver Twist? The public wanted something more extravagant still, more sym-pathy for thieves, and so Jack Sheppard makes his appearance•3°
Catherine represents a significant period in the
development of Thackeray*s and Fraser's concept of the kind
of subject matter that the novel should be concerned with*
The story was not an exact parody of Ainsworth's Sheppard.
although it closely paralled it* The plot is a gruesome
one*. Catherine Hayes plans the murder of her husband, in-
volving her illegitimate son and a lodger as accomplices*
The men kill Hay eg' "ii th a hatchet, decapitate him, dispose
of his head in the Thames and his body in a pond* The head
is found and put on a pole in a churchyard* Since the men
confess, all are convicted, including Catherine* The men
are hanged, but Catherine is burned at the stake*
Hollingsworth states that Thackeray's original intention
was to write an extended tale in a realistic fashion, after
Fielding, proving that a crime novel could be written in a
way that would not arouse sympathy for the criminal*^
Thackeray's philosophical basis for this undertaking—the
conviction that a rogue is a rogue and that a realistic
portrait of his character would not produce a sympathetic
38Ibid*, p. 211.
•^Hollingsworth, p* 153*
38
reaction—rests on a simplistic conception of human nature*
Of course, his contention was occasioned by the extremely
unrealistic, romantic accounts of rogues which were the pro-
duct of the historical romance# but it failed to take into
consideration the fact that even the most despicable scoun-
drel might have redeeming characteristics, which a realistic
account would be obliged to take into consideration, and
which might, conceivably, influence the reader in the
criminal's behalf* Fielding's representation of rogues is
far from realistic in terms of characterization* Thackeray
seems, at this point, to be championing Fielding's style
and his moral convictions, but he has trouble fitting his
characters into the shallow molds that make a Squire
Allworthy possible* In Catherine he attempted to ignore
his dilemmaj however, the problem of realistic characterization
plagued both Thackeray and Fraser's for some time*
Although the February, 18^0y issue of Fraser's probably
epitomized its attack on the Newgate novel, references to
the "spurious" school of writing continued sporadically for
some time* Taking Fraser's lead, other periodicals and
newspapers began attacking Ainsworth, Dickens, and Bulwer-
Lytton, and many minor crime novelists as well, relieving
Fraser's of much of the critical burden. Catherine had,
for awhile, subdued Thackeray's interest in parodying
rogue literature* Several letters record, his disgust with
"this horrid book," the most interesting of which is one
39
written to his mother, indicating that one source of his
disenchantment was the difficulty he had had in making his
heroine entirely despicable, the difficulty with character-
ization that has been mentioned before*
Your letter with compliments has just come to hand? it is very ingenuous in you to find such beauties in Catherine wh« was a mistake all through—it was not made disgusting enough that is the fact* and the triumph of it would have been to make readers so horribly horrified as to cause them to give up or rather throw up the book and all of it's Tsiq) kind, whereas you see the author had a sneaking kindness for his heroins, and did not like to make her utterly worthless*
Several of the later reviews bear mentioning, however.
In August, 1840, Thackeray published a first-hand account
of the public execution of Benjamin Courvoisier, including
a reference to Dickens's Oliver Twisti
There were a considerable number of girls, too, of the same age* one that Cruikshank and Boz might have taken as a study for Nancy* The girl was a young thief's mistress evidently? if attacked, ready to reply without a particle of modesty; could give as good ribaldry as she got* made no secret (and there were several inquiries) as to her profession and means of livelihood. But with all this, there was something good about the girl* a sort of devil-may-care candour and simplicity# • • • BahI what fig-ments these novelists tell us! Boz, who knows life well, knows that his Miss Nancy is the most unreal fantastical personage possible* no more like a thief's mistress, than one of Ggssner's shepherdesses resembles a real country wench*
This passage too, interestingly enough, indicates Thackeray's
40 William Thackeray, The Letters of William Makepeace
Thackerayt ed» Gordon Ray (Cambridge» Harvard Univ. Press, 1945), I, 432-33*
M. T0iackeray3» "Going to See a Man Hanged," Fraser's Magazine. 22 (1840), 154.
40
uncertainty about the portrayal of criminal heroes* While
he derides Dickens's sympathetic characterization of Nancy*
he admits that the thief's mistress he saw at the execution
had "something good" about her, a quality which would seem
to preclude the strict black and white moral system that
Thackeray wanted to set forth#
The January, 1847, number of Fraser's contained a brief
reference to Bulwer-Lytton's new novel. Lucretia. which had hO
been roundly attacked by several London papers. In nA
grumble about the Christmas Books," Thackeray asserted, "We
will have a word or two with Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer Lytton,
Bart., presently, by the way, who for his infamous and mur-
derous propensities, as lately shown in his most appalling
and arsenical novel of Lucretia. deserves to be brought up
with a tight h a n d . A p p a r e n t l y this article in Eraser's,
mild in comparison to some of the earlier ones, represented
a consummating insult to Bulwer. Hollingsworth records that
the novelist thought Thackeray to be the critic behind more
abuse than was published in Fraser's: several unfavorable
articles in Punch bore evidence of the satirist's style,
and Bulwer suspected that Thackeray was the instigator of
some of the attacks by other critics. Rising to his own
Hollingsworth, p. 196.
^ A* T i t m a r s h &illiam Thackeray], MA Grumble about the Christmas Books," Fraser's Magazine. 35 (18^7), 215.
41
defense, the novelist proposed to challenge Thackeray to a
duel, was dissuaded "by Forster, and published a pamphlet
instead, asserting that crime had its place in literature*
Bulwer-Lytton's pamphlet, however, did little to advance
the cause of his particular romantic representation of
villainy* By 18^7, the Newgate novel was, for all practical
purposes, a thing of the past* The questions that the
Newgate controversy had provoked, however, remained vital
ones* As Fraser's reviewers, along with other Victorian
critics of the novel, groped toward a critical standard for
the genre which they felt to be such a powerful influence
on society, they were faced more and more with the problem
of reconciling the artistic demands of the novel with the
responsible, instructive role that they felt it should play*
kh, Hollingsworth, p* 201*
CHAPTER IV
SILVER FORKS AND THE NOVEL*
FRASER'S CRITICISM OF FASHIONABLE FICTION
Fraser*s overly-zealous criticism of Bulwer-Lytton's
crime novels must be viewed in conjunction with its criti-
cism of another school of writing which Bulwer represented,
before the full weight of its argument can be understood#
In the early 1800's, Bulwer was the recognized master of
the fashionable school of novel writing* fashionable novels*
or "silver fork" novels,as they were derisively called,
dealt with the genteel world and were decorated with extended
metaphors, delicate sentiments, and French affectations*
* n Paul Clifford and Eugene Aram, Bulwer merely applied' his
sentimental characterization and prolix style to the crimi-
nal element of society rather than the aristocratic, thereby
giving Fraser*s grounds to attack him on two fronts. As a
fashionable novelist, he was inviting criticism) as a fashion-
able, criminal novelist, he was inviting ruin# Yet Bulwer*s
shift in subject matter from the fashionable world to the
common one signified a change that the direction of the
novel would take, a change that Fraser's. in effect, had
advocated. Disgusted with fine writing and sponsoring a
return to the more realistic styles of the eighteenth
century, Fraser*s abhorred Bulwer®s romanticized representation
lLf>
43
of the lower class but appreciated the fact that the subject
matter of the novel needed to include all classes of people*
From the beginning of its publication inspired, no
doubt, by Carlyle, who registered his disgust with "silver
fork" novels in Sartor Resartus. the critics of Fraser's
set about to destroy the popularity of the books* Maginn
went about the matter gleefully. He complained about the
inflated style of fashionable novels in a review of "Novels
of the Season," February, 1831* The review was mainly aimed
at Bulwer-Lytton, but one of Maginn's roost succinct remarks
was made in connection with a very minor novel, The Temple
of Melkarta by Holdsworth. Intent upon illustrating the
absurd lengths that fashionable novelists went to in order
to "wax poetic," Maginn quoted a typical descriptive pas-
sage from the novel and then made his own assessments
'Upon the bare mountain-top he sat watching the waning moon as she climbed the sky--he watched her course till she reeled from the zenith; and then, just before the wings of morning, edged with silver, had broke up from the east, he discerned her horn—'
Those who wish to see what he saw upon her horn, must recur to the book, for we can go no further* The originality and beauty of this importation from the land of poetry must be duly appreciated. Of all planets, primary or secondary, the moon, assuredly, is the worst used. For our own parts, the mention of her name in the pages of a fine writer warns us off; and exclaiming with Burns,
'It is the moon—I ken her., horn.' we close the volume in a hurry.
[william f/Iaginnj, "The Novels of the Season," Fraser's Magazine, 3 (1831), 104. The reviewer identified by Thrall, p. 303.
44
Of all the fashionable novelists, Bulwer-Lytton bore
the brunt of Fraser*s witticisms, probably because his great
popularity and his real talent in writing made him a for-
midable enemy. Felham was mocked unmercifully* In July,
1831, Maginn, somewhat underhandedly, attributed the author-
ship of a flattering review of Bulwer's works, which had
appeared in the May issue of the New Monthly Magazine. to
the novelist himself, quoting Bulwer as saying* "Pelham. one
of the most successful novels of our day • • • appeared in
1828• . . . If we except the Literary Gazette. which per-
ceived and did justice to the extraordinary mind then putting
forth its powers, 'the whole commons* of periodicals, like
those 'in Kent, were up in arms.*" Maginn exposed not
only Bulwer's egotism in the review but also the unethical
advertisement of the noveli "The deep critical perception
of the Literary Gazette is here the object most worthy of
applause. Can any body conjecture why the Gazette puffed
Pelham? The work was published at a certain house in New
Burlington Street? the Gazette's publisher but that could
not have anything to do with the matter. No—it was sheer
admiration of the extrodinary mind then putting forth its
powers--nothing else«M^
2{William Maginn], "The Autobiography of Edward Lytton Bulwer, Esq.," Fraser's Magazine. 3 (1831). n-ih. viewer identified by Thrall, p. 303. .
3Ibid.
In December, 1831, in the first of Fraser's "Epistles
to the Literati," Maginn attacked the fashionable novel in
general and Felham and Bulwer-Lytton in particular once morei
his statement accurately summed up the affectations of polite
society, insinuating that Bulwer's knowledge of fashionable
affairs was obtained by way of the servants of gentlemen,
rather than by association with the upper class itself#
Nobody knows better than yourself, [Bulwerl that, to make a fashionable novel, all that is required is a tolerable acquaintance with footmen and butlers, which can be easily picked up by any ingenious gentle-man who will feed these functionaries with a pot of ale, reinforced by an occasional half-crown* This will supply the high life, the silver fork, the no-twice for soup, the ignorance of Bloomsbury Square, the antipathy to cheese and port, and all the other nice minutiae which mark the exquisite knowledge of fashionable existence in these excellent volumes* Incidents will be supplied from the French* * • • As impudence and bad English are matters within the reach of the smallest capacity, the materials for this description of novel are all at hand. A pre-paration of five weeks would enable an operative to do • • • Felham* • • . For works in the sentimental line, pilfer the indecency from Faublas, the reflections from Rochefoucauld, and the incidents from Harriet Wilson* • • • The meanness of the characters intro-duced you may draw from yourself*^
As was the case with the Newgate controversy, under
Thackeray, Fraser's intensified its attack. Thackeray's
remarks in "A Word on the Annuals," December, 1837,-—
"A silver fork, forsooth! it may serve to transfix a
saveloy, or to perforate a roasted tatori but never let
the term be used for the future to designate a series of
^Robin Roughhead Cwilliam Maginn}, "Epistles to the Literatit No* I, to E. L* Bulwer," Fraser's Magazine. 4 (1831), 520. The reviewer identified by Thrall, p. 30*f.
kS
novels which pretend to describe polite life were mild
precedents to Yellowplush's satires of the next year* In
January, 1838, Yellowplush the footman parodied Bulwer's
fine writing and his philosophical and aristocratic pre-
tensions in the preface to "Miss Shum's Husband*"
*1 am,* says I, in a neat spitch, *1 am a littery man—there is no shame in it in the present instinsi though, in genneral, it's a blaggerd employment enough* But it ain't my trade—it isn't for the looker of gain that I sitt penn to payper—it is in the saycred caws of nollitch* (Hear, hear*) The exolted class which we have the honour to serve,' says I, 'has been crooly misreparysented* Authors have profist to describe what they never see* People in Russle Square, and that vulgar naybrood, bankers, slissitors, merchints* wives, and indeed snobs in general, are, in their ideer of our manners and customs, misguided, delooded, HUMBUGGED—for I can find no more ellygant espression— by the accounts which they receive of us from them authors* Does BULWER,' says I, 'for instins, know any think of fashnabble life? (Snears, and hallygorical cries of "Hookey," "How's your mothar?" & c*) You Oine with me in a pinion,' says I, 'and loudly hanser, Not Did SKELETON know any think more? (Cries of "Hoff. hoff." from coachmin, "Fee dong," from my lady's maid*) No, no more' nor Bulwer* It is against these imposters that I harm myself; and you, ray friends, will appl'od my resolution*
Fraser's armed itself well indeed against the fashionable
novelists with the invention of Yellowplush* Thrall notes
that although Maginn probably suggested the device of a
butler eavesdropping on fashionable life as a parody of
Bulwer-Lytton, it was Thackeray who brought to the magazine
^[William Thackeray], "A Word on the Annuals," Fraser's Magazine, 16 (I837), 760. The reviewer identified by Thrall, P* 295*
^Charles Yellowplush (William Thackeray], "The Yellow-Plush Correspondence, N». II, Miss Shum's Husband," Fraser's Magazine. 17 (1838), 39.
^7
in the person of Yellowplush a certain aloofness, a snob-
bery, that it had previously lacked. Thrall characterizes
the early Fraserians under Maginn as "an unscrupulous lot
in every sense of the word and quite too hearty to be aware
of hairsplitting niceties or even decent refinements*
But from the pages of the Yellowplush Correspondence, a faint#
but genuine, aristocratic attitude began to develop in
reference to the sham version of genteel life that was
8
paraded in the fashionable novels*
In August, 1838, Thackeray published the first of two
articles which stood out as the satirist's most brilliant
attacks on Bulwer-Lytton. "Mr. Yellowplush*s A jew" describes
a dinner party where "Bullwig" and another favorite butt
*"or Fraser's jokes, Dr. Dionysus Lardner, meet their menial
counterpart, Yellowplush, the "littery" footman.^ Ray notes
that in implying that Bulwer found "his true public" in
footmen like Yellowplush, Thackeray was acting in the best
public i n t e r e s t " T h e r e is abundant contemporary evi-
dence • . . to show that Bulwer aroused general resentment •
and irritation, that he was the Dr. Fell of a large part
of the literary world."11 Even if Thackeray's attack was
unjustified, however, the genius of it is sufficient to
?Thrall, pp. 77-78.. 8Ibid.
^William Thackeray, "Mr. Yellowplush's Ajew," in Yellowplush Papers and Burlesques in Thackeray's Complete works (Bostoni Estes and Lauriat, 1883)» pp. 101-10.
10Ray, pp. 2^2-^3* 11Ibid«, p. 243.
4-8
redeem its ethical flaws* The humor evident in an early
scene, where Yellowplush announces the entrance of Bulwer -
Lytton and Lardner, is characteristic of the entire sketch»
'What name, sir?' says I, to the old genlmn* 'NameI—a! now, you thief o* the wurrld,' says he,
'do you pretind nat to know me? Say it's the Cabinet Cyclopa—no, I mane the Litherary Chran—psha!--bluthanownsi—say it's DOGTKOR DIOCLESIAN LARNER—I think he'll know me now—ay, Nid?' But the genlmn called Nid was at the botm of the stare, and pretended to be very busy with his shoo-string* So the little genlmn went upstares alone*
'DOCTOR DIOLESIUS LARNER!' says I. •DOCTOR ATHANASIUS LARDNER!' says Greville Fitz-
Roy, our secknd footman, on the fust landing-place* •DOCTOR IGNATIUS LOYOLA!' says the groom of the
chambers, who pretends to be a scholari and in the little genlmn went* When safely housed, the other chap camej and when I asked him his name, said, in a thick, gobbling kind of voice*
'Sawedwadgeoreearllittnbulwig*' 'Sir what?' says I, quite agast at the name* 'Sawedwad—no, I meen Mistawedwad Lyttn Bulwig* * My neas trembled under me, my i's fild with tiers,
my voice shook, as I past up the venrabble name to the other footman, and saw tfeis fust of English writers go up to the drawing-room!12
A second brilliant attack appeared in January, 18^0,
when Charles Yellowplush directed the thirteenth of Praser's
popular "Epistles to the Literati" to "Sir Edward Lytton
Bulwer, Bart*" The ostensible subject of the "epistle"
was Bulwer's play The Sea Captain? the real subject was
Bulwer's literary shortcomings* "One may object to an immence
deal of your writings, which, betwigst you and me, contain
more sham sentiment, sham morallaty, sham poetry, than you'd
like to own; but in spite of this, there's the stuf in you»
you've a kind and loyal heart in you, Barhet—a trifle
12 [Thackeray] , "Mr* Yellowplush's Ajew," p. 102*
49
deboshed, perhaps; a kean i, igspecially for what's comic (as
for your tradgady, it's mighty flatchulent), and a ready plesnt
pen* The man who says you are an As is an As himself* Don't
13
believe him, Barnetj not that I suppose you will." J
This kind of condescending satire, even more than the
serious remarks that graced Fraser's pages from time to time,
slowly turned public opinion against the writers of fashionable
fiction* By 1840, Thackeray and Maginn had the reversal well
under way. In April, 1849» somewhat prematurely, Fraser's
announced that fashionable novels had at last become "most
unfashionable • • • aping . . . a system of society which
really died once and forever . . . on the 10th of April
14
last." Although "silver fork" novels continued to appear
from time to time, on into the 1850's, their appeal to the
novel-reading public was considerably diminished. Instead,
the spirit of reform that infused the English people in
the 1840*s and 1850's focused public attention on a very
different kind of novel. Under such writers as Mrs. Gaskell,
Charles Dickens, Benjamin Disreali, and Charles Kingsley,
the politically oriented roman a these took shape. And
under the vigilant eye of Thackeray, Fraser's weighed the
new development against its standard for the novel and
found it, in many cases, wanting. ^Charles Yellowplush fwilliam Thackeray], "Epistles to
the Literati, N., XIII, Ch-s Y-ll-wt>l-sh, Esq. to Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer, Bart.j John Thomas Smith, Esq. to C-s Y-h, Esa.." Fraser's Magazine. 21 (1840), 71*
14 'Recent Novels," Fraser's Magazine. 39 (1849), 419.
CHAPTER V
SOCIAL REFORM AND THE NOVEL#
FRASBR'S CRITICISM OF THE ROMAN A THESE
In some respects the propagandist tendencies of the
roman a these were closely related to the Newgate theme as
Bulwer-Lytton had represented it. Paul Clifford was pre-
faced with remarks to the effect that the tale was aimed
at exposing the deplorable state of England's criminal
jurisprudence* Unlike its fashionable predecessors, the
novel did not focus on the aristocratic class* These roman
§. these characteristics, however, were combined with the
stylistic and philosophical affectations of the fashionable
novel in such a way that Maginn, and even Thackeray, were
not inclined to recognize Clifford as a real deviation.
Thackeray, as has been noted, applauded Bulwer's "serious
intent" in crime writing over Ainsworth's attempt to revive
romance, but he apparently did not attach much significance
to the novel's propagandist tendencies*
The first hint that Fraser's had begun to concern itself
with the novel's assumption of a political role appears in a
review of Reybaud's Jerome Paturot by Thackeray in September,
1843* The review, a complimentary one, ends with a reference
to the fact that some critics had termed Paturot a political
novel, and therefore, a failure* Thackeray dismisses the
50
51
novelist's political concerns—"Mr• Reybaud is understood
to be a grave man, dealing in political economy, in Fourierism,
and other severe sciences"^*—by asserting that Fielding, too,
was interested in politicst however, his political affiliations
2
did not damage Tom Jones*
In 1844, however, when Benjamin Disraeli published
Coningsby. Fraser's recognized an attempt to exploit the
novel for the purposes of political aggrandizement* Sym-
pathetic with Disraeli's promotion of reform, Fraser's none-
theless objected to his relatively undisguised representations
of popular political figures* "Ostensibly, indeed, Mr*
Disraeli stands forward in these volumes as the mouthpiece
of a new party and the teacher of grave political truths
to his countrymen* In reality, it may turn out that he is
at once indulging his spleen against particular persons,
and making an effort to win for himself a position in
public estimation*This suspicious attitude is echoed
in a review of Anti-Coningsby. a protest against Disraeli's
book by a minor novelist. Recalling the attack which
Disraeli had made on John Wilson Croker, a Fraserian, the
reviewer notes that! "In Coningsby. Mr* Disraeli has quite
"M. A. Titmarsh [William Thackeray!, "Jerome Paturot. with Sonsiderations on Novels in General," Fraser's Magazine. 28 (184-3), 362.
2Ibid*
__ . 3wConingsbxi or The New Generation." Fraser's Magazine. 30 (1844), 84.
52
outdone all his former efforts, political and literary, in
the way of downright, undisguised, and unmitigated personal-
ity. 1,4
The final paragraphs of the review of Anti-Coningsby
indicate that Fraser's critics had begun to recognize
propagandist novels as a distinct type, equating them at
this point with criminal novels and maintaining that their
real purpose was to exploit the poor masses by magnifying
their dissatisfactions* *A school of scribblers has sprung
up whose paramount object appears to be to excite the poor,
and to denounce all those whose descent makes them the
terrarum dominos, or whose energy, industry, and ability
have raised them to a similar position* These persons are
in the habit of venting a great deal of maudlin sentiment,
and putting forth a great deal of cheap and spurious
liberality about the condition of the agricultural' labourer*
They have, in truth, no sympathy with him, nor he with them.
In June, 1845» Disraeli's Sybilt or the Two Nations
came under attack. Accusing the novelist of insincerity, .
and contrasting Disraeli's selfish motives for producing
the work with Dickens's sincere ones—"Why is Dickens such
an universal favorite? • . • because his aim is uniformly
if, t ^ — — _ "Anti-Coningsbyi or the New Generation Grown Old," Fraser's Magazine. 31 (1845), 313.
^Ibid», p. 221.
53
to inculcate the Christian duty of universal good-will and
consideration between man and manM^—the reviewer indicates
that "novels with a purpose" are not objectionable when the
author is motivated by real concern!
We presume, therefore, that it is to the people of England that Mr* Disraeli is addressing himself, more especially to the landowners, the millowners, and the great capitalists generally, and that he seeks to impress upon them the moral truth, that their hap-piness will be increased in exact proportion as they endeavor to promote the happiness of their dependents* If so, the purpose is a righteous onef and though, as we have already ventured to hint, the source whence the lecture comes be the reverse of pure, we shall still venture to hope that some to whom it is read may listen and improve, without troubling themselves to inquire too narrowly into the real motives that have produced it*7
By 1847, a review entitled "Recent Novelsi French and
English" by G. H. Lewes suggests that Fraser's had qualified
its endorsement of social novels much further* Lewes men-
tions that George Sand's Piccinino is an inferior work but
"has not, however, the drawback of most of her novels* it
is not a social manifesto."8 Until 1849, Fraser's position
regarding the roman a these is somewhat unclear* Lewes*s
denouncement of the social manifesto is offset by another
reviewer's assertion in 1848 that the novel "must become the
fearless though informal censor of the age, and hold society
in severe check by mercilessly exposing the errors,
( 1 8 4 5 ) I s r a e l i , M. P.," Fraser's Magazine. 31
^Ibid», p. 737.
8 &. H. Lewes\ "Recent Novels 1 French and English," JrasermiS Magazine, 36 (1847), 695* The reviewer identified by Tillotson, p. 7, n. 2.
5*
weaknesses* absurdities, excesses, and even crimes* which
disfigure and disturb i t . T h i s comment would seem to
promote the social novelj however, it was made in connection
with Lewes*s novel Rose* Blanche. and Violet and pro-
bably referred more to the universal weaknesses of mankind
than to the special abuses of English society which the
propagandist novels were concerned with.
In July, 1848, Charles Kingsley's obviously propagan-
dist novel Yeast began its serial run in Fraser'st the
novel was not reviewed concurrently with its serialization,
but its appearance in the magazine would seem to indicate
Fraser's support. In May, 1855, a review of Kingsley's
Westward Hot mentions Yeast as a novel which "shocks our
prejudices" but which "bids us see ourselves as we are,
without flattery and without deception*1,10 The novel is
not denounced as a social manifesto.
The first specific indication of Fraser's final con-
victions regarding the literary worth of the roman a these
appears in April, 184-9# in a review of Mrs. Gaskell's
Marv Barton. Praising the realism of Mrs. Gaskell's de-
piction of Manchester's poverty-stricken working men, the
reviewer states* "We might praise the 'talent1 of the book*
^"Recent Novels,** Fraser's Magazine. 38 (1848), 33."
. _ *°G* *• W., "Westward Hot." Fraser's Magazine. 51 (1855/# 507»
55
we might, and justly, attribute to it higher artistic excel-
lency, than we have done even to the novel we last mentioned
[My Uncle the Curate]; but the matter puts the manner out of
sight* The facts—the facts are all in all{ for they are
11
facts*" His contention is expanded in a carefully worded
statement of policy regarding the social novel which pre-
faces a review of Kingsley's Alton Locke and two other, minor,
novels in November, 1850* Recognizing as "the distinctive
mark of modern fiction* its tendency to leave "art to shift
for itself" in order to "express and embody what may be des-
cribed as the wants and yearnings of the time," the re-
viewer insists that the "legitimate province of the novelist"
is to exhibit society as he finds it without aiming at a
philosophical exposition of its a b u s e s H e protests "in
sober seriousness, against the practice which is rapidly
gaining ground amongst us, of writing political pamphlets,
ethical treatises, and social dissertations in the disguise
of novels*"^
The standard which the former reviewer evoked in re-
gard to the social novel is almost identical with the
standard of "truth in writing" that Maginn and Thackeray
referred to in regard to criminal studies and fashionable
^"Recent Novels," Fraser*s Magazine. 39 (1849), 430. 12
"A Triad of Novels," Fraser's Magazine. 42 (1850). 57^.
13Ibid., p. 575-
56
novels; and in some respects, Fraser*s apparent inconsistency
in denouncing the social manifesto and, at the same time,
publishing Yeast is explained. Mrs. Gaskell's Mary Barton
and, apparently, Kingsley's Yeast were felt to be novels
whose social themes did not damage their intrinsic merit.
Objecting to "novels with a purpose," where "the purpose is
everything, while the fable and characterization are secon-lk
dary considerations," Fraser's did not eschew all reform-
oriented literature. Thus Mary Barton—distinctly a social
novel, but primarily a well-disciplined tale of Manchester
life--was applauded. Alton Locke was carefully dissected;
the unsoundness of its social philosophy weighed against
the strengths of its presentation."*"
By December, 1850, a review of Dickens's David Copperfield.
which sums up the strengths and weaknesses of his earlier
works, shows that Fraser's had its opinion of the social
novel well formed. The reviewer remarks that Nicholas
Nicklebv was in some respects damaged by Dickens's promotion
of social reformi but he does not attack the novel as a
social manifesto» "Unfortunately, too, about this time,
the young author seems to have conceived a notion that it
was his mission to exterminate special abuses, and he went
about the task with a zeal worthy of a Paladin or Hercules lZfIbid.
15Ibid., pp. 576-585-
57
h i m s e l f * T h e critic is not so much concerned with Dickens's
subject, the cheap Yorkshire schools, as with his misrepre-
sentation of the facts» "the • • • schools • » • in real
truth are by no means the hells of brimstone-and-treacle
which he represented them to be*""^ In Oliver Twist the
critic feels that the social propaganda is at variance with
the tone of the booki "This ulterior object was so apparent,
that the effect of the tale was in some degree marred. On
the other hand, the fun of the tale diverted people from its
serious object; and we are not even sure that the purpose
1 A
was right• However, he finds no fault with David
Copperfield's exposure of the English system of imprisonment
for crime, or with Pickwick's exposure of the system of
imprisonment for debt, implying that Dickens handled these
themes in such a way that they exhibited society as he found
it, without propagandizing for reform and without damaging
the structure of his' tales*
Fraser's criticism, then, of popular novel types in
the early 1800*s was most severe in regard to crime writing
and tales of fashionable life* The fact that Bulwer-Lytton
was the leading proponent of these schools does not indicate
that Maginn's and Thackeray's censure of him was personal
rather than professional, or that it was unjustified*
^"Charles Dickens and David Copperfield,." p. 701*
17Ibid*
l8Ibid.
58
Bulwer's novels, and Bulwer himself, represented a defunct
way of life; the critics of Fraser's made the public aware
of the fact* Yet if Fraser's refused to pay homage to
things past, the magazine was also cautious about a too
exuberant show of approval for the change in literary taste * N
that the popularity of the roaan a these signified* Con-
sistently, throughout the 1830*s and 18^0's, Fraser's sub-
jected popular novels to its test of "truth in writing*"
Fraser's critics, in particular Thackeray, had little dif-
ficulty recognizing sensationalism and imitation* With
practice, they had little difficulty separating responsible,
artistically sound novels from their propagandist counter-
parts •
CHAPTER VI
PHASER'S STANDARD OP REALISM
Fraser's novel reviews under the auspices of Maginn and
Thackeray can be seen as groping attempts to express a some-
what vague conviction about literary excellence in the form*
Recognizing that crime novels, fashionable novels# and many
social reform novels were the inferior offspring of the
romance and the novel of manners, Fraser's critics constantly
recalled the eighteenth-century prototypes of the early
Victorian imitations, pointing out the greatness of the former
and the tawdry state of the latter. Nol Yorfee's deploring
statement, *0 let us not talk of our literature in the present
day—we have none," is paraphrased again and again in
Maginn*s and Thackeray's reviews of Bulwer-Lytton, Ainsworth,
and many minor novelists. But in addition to the imitative
work of the minor figures of the age, in the 1840»s and
early 1850's Fraser's was confronted with work of a more
enduring nature, novels which departed from the literary
conventions of the eighteenth century or utilized them in
a way that indicated a new development in the evolution of
the form. It is with regard to these works that Fraser's
standard of "truth in writing" is best revealed.
59
60
Fraser's ideal of realism in fiction, although it was
loudly proclaimed, was somewhat unclear while the magazine
was edited by Maginn. A doctor of laws, a classical scholar,
a far-sighted political thinker, Maginn was never the master
of the critical tradition of the novel that Thackeray came
to be* His insistence that novels portray life realistically
represented only a small part of his general predilection
for authenticity. He thus preferred such novelists as Sterne
and Fielding to the popular writers of his day# No special
knowledge was required to sense the difference between
Bulwer-Lytton's highly artificial style and the more robust,
honest efforts of his predecessors* The resentment he felt
that the roading public exalted the works of Bulwer over
those of Fielding is evident in his reviews* He makes a
typical comment in reference to a biography of Bulwer which
appeared in the New Monthly Magazine»
After a passing kick at the coarseness of Fielding and Smollett, and a single sentence bestowed on 'the poetical age just departed,* we come to the great author of our own times. There is no mistake* The man is Mr. Edward Lytton Bulwer. Hath he not said it in the following sentences*
•With that keen perception of reality, which is the executive power of genius, he has entered into the spirit of his own times. Mr* Bulwer is the first novelist who has placed his best reward, and his great aim, in the utility of his writings.'J-
1 William MaginnJ, "The Autobiography of Edward Lytton » E!q,:' Fraser's Magazine. 3 (1831;, 713- The reviewer
identified by Thrall, p . 3 0 3 .
61
The sarcasm of the review is typical of "the contents
of much of Maginn's criticismf recognizing shoddy imitation
when he saw it, Maginn nonetheless seldom discussed what he
meant by authenticity, what constituted "truth in writing*M
The vagueness of Maginn*s critical tenet is probably par-
tially responsible for the charges of dealing solely in
personalities which were leveled against him from time to
time* Unlike Thackeray's, Maginn's criticism of popular
novel types did not proceed from any readily intelligible
base* He appeared arbitrarily to condemn one novelist for
the same kind of writing that he praised in another* The
occasional inconsistency of his criticism suggests that,
while he was certainly well read in eighteenth-century and
contemporary fiction, his understanding of the novel genre
as a whole did not extend to the categorization of various
distinct types within the form* He appreciated the ro-
bustness of Fielding, but he never discussed the significance
of Fielding's attempt to adapt the scope of the epic to
fiction? he liked Sterne's satire but did not identify it
as a parody on the popular types of novels of the late
eighteenth century* Thus when Ainsworth, his friend, pub-
lished Rookwood. Maginn may not have thought of it as a
criminal novel* He probably rather noted that Ainsworth*s
style was less "fine" than Bulwer-Lytton's and that Ainsworth
himself was less pompous and more amusing than the author
of Paul Clifford* However, the fact that Maginn's judgment
62
in literary matters was sometimes affected by this Kind of
analysis does not invalidate his criticism as a whole*
His instinctive recognition of authentic writing underlies
most of Fraser*s critical remarks during the period of his
editorship* and under Thackeray, the vague standard of
realism which the magazine had declared in its early editions
was clarified*
Numerous references in the magazine to Fielding and to
the novel's assumption of the role of the epic as a cultural
and moral force in society suggest that the standard of
realism which Maginn had in mind for the novel was closely
related to Fielding's kind of writing* Much may be said
to support the contention that Fielding's works would
hardly qualify as realism now, but with reference to the
highly artificial styles that were adopted by many early
Victorian novelists, Maginn's choice of Fielding a's a
representative of "truth in fiction" was an apt one. Ian
Watt's distinction between the orientation of Fielding's
and Richardson's fiction is particularly enlightening in
regard to Fraser's affinity for Fielding's art. Identifying
Fielding's purpose "to show 'not men but manners,' not an
individual, but a species," Watt goes on to contrast it
to Richardson's "literary objective . . . not so much char-
acter—the stable elements in the individual's mental and
2 * . Watt, The Rise of the Novel (Berkeleyt Univ* of
California Press, 19^777 P* 2?2.
63
moral constitution—as personality* • • • Fielding's purpose*
on the other hand, is analytict he is not interested in the
exact configuration of motives in any particular person's
mind at a particular time but only in those features of the
individual which are necessary to assign him to his moral
and social species*
By Maginn's time Richardson's experiments with psycho-
logical realism had degenerated into the highly artificial
fashionable style of novel writing* The simple plot structure
of Pamela and Clarissa—the courtship of a young woman—had
been exploited mercilessly by an endless stream of minor
women novelists who lacked both Richardson's insight and his
stylistic ability* Maginn, it appears* was so appalled by
the imitators of Richardson that he had very little respect
for the possibilities of Richardson's introspective method*
While the pages of Fraser's early numbers are replete with
references to Fielding, Sterne, Smollett, and Jane Austen,
references to Richardson as a pioneer of the novel are
notably absent* While occasionally later critics of Fraser's
recognize and praise introspective character!ssation when
it appears in novels like Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre.
most often the magazine's attitude toward characterization
and plot follows Fielding's theory of the novel*
Fraser's early affinity for Fielding is borne out not
only by numerous pointed references to the superiority of
3Ibid *
6k
Fielding's style over that of many minor novelists but also
by criticism in various reviews not specifically related to
Fielding which yet reflects Fielding's critical tenets* In
a review of "Charles Dickens and His Works," April, 1840,
Fraser's critic espouses Fielding's method of characteriza-
tion* Dickens's rather pompous statement in the preface of
the collected series of Pickwick, a statement regarding the
believability of his characters, is attacked* Dickens had
said, "And if it be objected to the Pickwick Papers, that
they are a mere series of adventures, in which the scenes
are ever changing, and the characters come and go like the
men and women we encounter in the real world, he [pickens,
the authorj can only content himself with the reflection
that they claim to be nothing else, and that the same ob-
jection has been made to the works of some of the greatest
if
novelists in the English language." Citing inconsistencies
in the characterization of Pickwick—"In the hands of Boz,
he commences as a butt and ends as a hero"-*—Nancy of Oliver
Twist, and Smike and Squeers of Nicholas Nicklebv. the critic
complains that "Mr* Dickens may perhaps now perceive that
the objection to the Pickwick papers, as a whole, is not that
'the characters come and go like the men and women we encounter
in the real world,' but that they do not*"6 The review
"Charles Dickens and His Works," p* 382*
5Ibid., p. 391*
6Ibid*
65
contrasts Dickens's Pickwick with Dr« Primrose of The, Vicar
of Wakefield and Abraham Adams of Joseph Andrews, asserting
that Pickwick ""begins as a burlesque man, who never was in-
tended seriously as a representative of any thing that
existed—sometimes well drawn, and sometimes ill drawn, as
chance may bei whom the author makes an awkward effort to
convert, at the end of his work, into a representative of
a real man, acting upon real principles of honour and pru-
dence • T h e contention is, of course, that the latter
two characters are "real" men, who are characterized con-
sistently throughout the novels.
Fraser's enthusiastic espousal of Fielding's character-
ization in this review is grounded in an attitude toward the
function of character in the novel which is even more closely
allied to the novelist's theory of fiction than the review
would seem to suggest# The fact that Fraser's critic ac-
cepted Adams as a real man implies that his view of realism,
so far as characterization is concerned, is oriented in the
direction of characters of manners, or as Watt puts it,
characters who exhibit an "essentially static view of human Q
nature#" This attitude toward characterization is basically
a classical one, finding its roots in Aristotle's Poetics—
character' is 'that which reveals the moral purpose*"'^
It is a view which Maginn's extensive background in the
''ibid., p. 392-
8Watt, p. 27^•
9Ibid.. n. 271.
66
classics undoubtedly prepared him to accept" Watt states
in regard to this kind of characterization that "once the
individual had been appropriately labelled the author's
only remaining duty was to see that he continued to speak
and act consistently*h1^ When Fraser's derides Pickwick's
inconsistency of characterization and labels Parson Adams •
a "real" man because he was conceived by Fielding as a
serious representative of static human virtues, it is
espousing a view of characterization which greatly limits
the possibilities for psychological realism---the subjective
study of the motives and conflicts of the individual*
It is rather advocating as realism in the novel a societal,
not an individual, orientation*
Later reviews support Maginn's classical definition of
character. In February, 184-3, an article entitled "French
Romances" presents Fraser's contention that "With Us, then,
it is certain that the lightest novel that ever finds a
publisher or circulation must give evidence of some power
of reflection on real life* its character and its plot must
be in keeping with probabilityt and the ingenuity and fancy
of the author must be shewn, not in imagining extravagances
and impossibilities, but in building up his fiction out of
the incidents and situations that frequent experience supplies."11
10Ibid.
11"French Romances," Fraser's Magazine. 27 (1843),
67
The review attacks George Sand's tendency to "reduce all
the distinctions of right and wrong, of vice and virtue,
to what may be called their neutral elements* With her
there is no right or wrong distinctly evident; but, mixed
elementally in her works as in her mind, their real con-
trariety makes them effervesce, and foam, and sparkle into '
12
the most brilliant shows of morbid sentiment." Here
Fraser's tendency to label any attempt at complex character
analysis as fabulous is evident. The attack on Sand, as a
leading representative of the French "literature of despera-
tion" school, more clearly indicates the definition of
realism that the review of Dickens had suggested# Sand's
subjective approach to characterization, one which obscured
the distinctions between good and evil by emphasizing per-
sonality rather than character in characterization, is con-
demned as unrealistic, morbid, and finally, depraved*
In May, 18^3» a review entitled "A Batch of Novels"
illuminated a significant aspect of Fraser's theory of the
epic function of the novel. Recognizing like Henry James
that women "feel and perceive the real with a kind of per-
sonal tact,"^ the reviewer states that "women have no
business whatever to dabble in historical romances. In
their own department of literature, they are as charming
as we have usually found them within the circle of private 12Ibid., p. 186.
13 Henry James, The Future of the Novel, ed. Leon Edel
(New Yorki Vintage Books, 1956), p. 236.
68
life* * • • But women are no more capable of conceiving
the abstract idea of the mind which is framed for the rise
and fall of empires than they are physically constituted to
play a prominent part in the revolutionary drama when it Ti|r
opens• His attitude is characteristic of the magazine's
remarks in general about women novelists* The subjective
approach to characterization which James admired in the
novels of women, Fraser's was inclined to dismiss as charming,
but hardly serious. Occasionally, in cases of novels which
were obviously written from a feminine point of view and which
were decidedly superior to the usual feminine products (Mrs*
Gaskell's Mary Barton and Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre)•«
Fraser's recognized real merit? but even then the reviewer
usually cautioned the novelist to remember her domestic
place, asserting that "unless a novel be built of real
experience, it can have no real success
Fraser's somewhat obscure standard of realism in fiction
received its severest test in the late 18*K)'s and early 1850*s
when it was applied to the works of Dickens and (Thackeray. '
In many respects these two men were heirs to Fielding's epic
theory of the novel, a fact which no doubt contributed con-
siderably to their success. In their work the wide view
of human reality, the depiction of static human virtues and
vices characteristic of Fielding, assumed a new dimension
"A Batch of Novels," Fraser's Magazine. 27 (18^3), 521*
15/G- H. LewesJ, "Recent Novels* French and English,." p« 691.
69
as both men struggled to combine realistic presentation with
a convincing assessment of the human condition#
Thackeray's early experiments with realism are evident
in both Catherine and The Luck of Barry Lyndon, serialized
Fraser's in 1844• Both novels represent serious attempts
to emulate the fiction of Fielding and to incorporate other
eighteenth-century traditions as well. But it was not until
September, 1848, that Fraser's proudly announced the book
which in many respects represented the triumph of its theory
of the novel—Thackeray's Vanity Fair* Declaring itself
"the nursery-bed in which Michael Angelo Titmarsh quickened,"
Fraser's astutely recognized Thackeray's "great indigo book"
as commemorative of "its white days and ambrosial memories*ttl^
A giant among much smaller fry, Thackeray's "comic epic in
prose" towered over the imitative works of Bulwer-Lytton and
Harrison Ainsworthj Fraser's rightfully considered itself
involved in the novel's success* Here at last was a novel
that hunted down "the follies, vices, and meainnesses of so-
ciety," that exposed them "for the benefit of mankind,"17 that
was written with a "fresh," "fluent" style?18 the reviewer had
difficulty finding any flaw in it except, perhaps, its ex-
cessive length (but even then he "put it down with reluctance")19
16"Vanity Fair," Fraser's Magazine. 48 (1848), 320.. 17Ibid*, pp. 320-21. ! Q
Ibid., pp. 332-33-19Ibid., p. 332.
70
or its overabundance of satire ("more light and air would have 20
rendered it more agreeable and healthy")•
Thackeray's novel evinced, more than his reviews in
Fraser's ever had, his mastery of the tradition of the English
novel* Skillfully combining the traditions of the historical
romance and the novel of manners with the satire and the epic
scope of Fielding's fiction, Thackeray produced a nineteenth-
century counterpart to Tom Jones* In doing so, he ended the
long war that he and Maginn had waged against irresponsible
fiction; for his work was not an imitation, but a synthesis,
of eighteenth-century literary traditions, one which pointed
the way in the character of Becky Sharp to a resolution' of
the problem implicit in Fielding's and Fraser*s definition
of realism* In Becky Sharp realistic characterization com-
bined with a realistic assessment of the character's role in
society* Unlike the heroine of Catherine. Becky was not made
to fit into a shallow, "Lady Allbad," mold; and unlike
Richardson's Clarissa. Vanity Fair did not sacrifice a repre-
sentative view of the human condition to an intensive study
of the personality of the individual*
Unfortunately for Fraser's. however, at the time of
Vanity Fair's publication, Thackeray was no longer writing
for the periodical. Left to the less astute handling of the
novelist's successors, the magazine gradually lost much of
20Ibid*, p. 322*
71
the keen wit and the incisive view of literary excellence that
had characterized it formerly. However, the three-year period
from 1850 to 1853 offers excellent material for summing up
Fraser's standard of realism as it was directed at the three
leading novelists of the day#
In January, 1850, Fraser*s pronounced a merciful doom
on Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer. Maginn's and Thackeray's pain-
ful panegyrics now in the past, the magazine professed a
softened enmity for the novelist, declaring that "we like no
21
one to abuse him but ourselves*" Yet its sibuse on this
occasion was perhaps the cruellest of all. The raucous out-
bursts of Maginn, the "littery" pretensions of Yellowplush,
and, most of all, the irrefutable excellence of Vanity Fair
had carried the day. Fraser's could afford to be generous
when it declared that "the truth is, Sir E. B. Lytton is not
leading the novel-writers of the age, because he is behind
the age himself.
If Bulwer was behind the age, however, Dickens and
Thackeray were well in it, perhaps in advance of it. In
December, 1850, Fraser's reviewed Dickens's immensely popu-
lar David Copperfield» The periodical's assessment of the
novelist's popularity indicates that the magazine's critics
saw him as an heir of Fielding, a realist who attempted to
21 lytton and Mrs. Grundy," Fraser's Magazine (
51 H050;, 98. "
22Ibid., p. 111.
72
give an accurate, uplifting portrait of society* "How are
we to account for this wide-spread popularity? Not because
the author is faultless--he is too human for that • • • but
because of his kindly, all-pervading charity, which would
cover a multitude of failings, because of his genial humour
and exquisite comprehension of the national character and
manners, because of his tenderness, because of his purity,
and, above all, because of his deep reverence for the house-
hold sanctities, his enthusiastic worship of the household
gods."23
Yet the review also indicates that if Fraser's con-
sidered Dickens a realist, it was somewhat puzzeiled by a
significant departure from the novelist's usual, clearly
defined, black or white, characterization. Recognizing that
"Rosa Dartle is not a being cast in the same mold of humanity
as those around her," the reviewer is unable to account for 2i+
her unnatural behavior on the occasion of Steerforth's death.
Rosa's actions, of course, are clearly motivated when the
reader is aware that throughout the novel Dickens has sug- •
gested that she was Steerforth's mistress. The character
analysis involved, however, is complex; it represents an
attempt on Dickens's part similar to Richardson's attempt in
Clarissa to present a complicated psychological situation.
Fraser's critic was not astute enough to recognize the attempt;
^^"Charles Dickens and David Copperfield." p. 698. oil
Ibid., p. 707•
73
in 1850, one thinks, Thackeray would not have made such a
mistake•
In January, 1851, a review of Thackeray's Pendennis
indicated that the magazine had made a break with the author,
"in his capacity of chief of the Realist School*"2^ The
reviewer claimed that were he to criticize Thackeray's
characterization of his hero on the grounds of inconsistency,
the novelist "might ask us whether we can reconcile the con-
tradictions apparent in the character and conduct of our most
intimate friends*" Like Dickens, Thackeray was expanding
his concept of realistic writing to include psychological
realism—a kind of "truth in writing" that Fraser's did not
recognize*
This review also ends with a prudish admonition that
heretofore had been uncharacteristic of Fraser*s criticism*
Always a defender of morals, Fraser's had never, under Maginn
and Thackeray, dealt out moralisms* Fielding, Maginn's
eighteenth-century favorite, is declared "gross"! the re-
viewer claims that "if we must describe life and nature exact-
ly as they are, all art becomes impossible*"2^
The new moralistic tone of Fraser's criticism colors a
review of Thackeray's Henry Esmond in December, 1852* Recog-
nizing "a kindlier and truer humanity in this work than in
2< "W. M. Thackeray and Arthur Pendennis, Esquires,"
Fraser's Magazine. 53 (1851), p. 86*
26Ibid*, p. 86*
27Ibid*, p. 8?*
7*
28
any of its author's former productions," the reviewer praises
the realistic depiction of the Castlewood family. Most of
the review, however, is concerned with characterization. The
critic is appalled by the incestuous implications of Lady
Castlewood's marriage to Henry and expresses disgust with
Thackeray's perverse view of human nature , which causes "that
which is most true in the novel" to be "most repugnant and
disagreeable*"^ The critic claims that he does not object
to characters who exhibit both good and bad tendencies, but
he does object to the characterization of Lady Castlewood,
because it presents good and bad in an impossible combination.
The review is reminiscent of the criticism of George Sandf
it indicates that Fraser's literary opinions, once so far
ahead of the age, had begun to lag behind.
If, as Thrall has suggested, Maginn's catastrophic review
of Grantley Berkeley's Berkeley Castle marked the end of the
rollicking early days of the periodical, the review of
Thackeray's Henry Esmond marked the beginning of a faltering
uncertainty in the periodical's literary judgment. In 1850,
few critics were equipped to deal with the developments in the
novel that came to constitute its Victorian excellence.
Thackeray, Dickens, and Trollopej George Eliot,, Mrs. Gaskell,
and Emily Bronte were often misrepresented, or worse, ignored.
Yet Fraser's contribution to the great age of the Victorian
28 "New Novels," Fraser's Magazine. 56 (1852), 326.
29Ibid., p. 631. 3°Ibid.
75
novel should not be underestimated- Although the periodical
had little to say when it finally was confronted with the
literature of its time* Nol Yorke's inebriated insistence
that "we have none" did much to bring it about*
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