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

H &

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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James, Henry. The Future of the Novel« ed. Leon Edel* New Yorki Vintage Books, 1956*

Ray, Gordon N. Thackeray* The Uses of Adversity (1811-1846)* New York* Mcgraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., 1955*

Sadleir, Michael. Bulwer* A Panorama. Boston, Little, Brown, and So*, 1933*

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Tillotson, Kathleen. Novels of the 1840*3. London* Oxford Univ. Press, 1962*

Watt, Ian* The Rise of the Novel. Berkeley* Univ. of California Press, 1967.

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