American Novel-Writing

       Table of Contents

      We propose, in the subsequent Nos. of the Examiner, to discuss this subject at some length. Our wish is to present, in the simplest manner compatible with thorough investigation, a full view of this department of our literature. In pursuance of the design, we shall comment, much in detail, upon the works of each of our novelists; assigning each, in conclusion, the post which we consider his due, and placing what has ben altogether accomplished among us, in that relative position which we suppose just, with regard to novel-writing generally considered. When we say that in attempting this we attempt an original theme, our readers may not immediately comprehend the assertion. Yet, although it has an air of improbability, it is not the less positively true. Nothing has yet been written upon this head which even approaches a comprehensive, much less a critical, survey. Some treatises, indeed, sufficiently long, and more than sufficiently vague, have appeared, from time to time, and with a certain affectation of generality, in the North American and American Quarterly Reviews. The intention of these papers, however, was not, we presume, (being charitable,) to convey any distinct impression beyond that of the writer’s ability. And, in truth, a subject so extensive as that of which we speak could scarcely be well treated, and should, therefore, not have been undertaken, in the pages of what we are accustomed to style our “Reviews,” since these ambiguous journals, from the length of time elapsing between their issues, cannot admit of the continuation of an article from one number to another. Criticisms of high merit, upon individual novels, have been met with, no unfrequently, in our monthly magazines; but these publications, (except in a few cases, where the imbecility of the critic was apparent,) have forborne to enter at length, and in detail, upon the general question. Prudential reasons, no doubt, have had much to do with their forbearance. An editor is usually either one of a coterie tacitly, if not avowedly pledged to the support of its own members; or, at least, he has a large number of friends among those who dabble in the waters of literature. It too often happens that a false sense of what is due to the chivalries of good-fellowship will induce him, unmindful of the loftier chivalries of truth, to put what he things the best face upon every work of every one of this number. In the case of an individual criticism, this, the best face, may be put in a multiplicity of ingenious ways. Should the worst come to worst, an excuse may be readily found for the indefinite postponement of the promised or expected laudation. Both horns of the dilemma—the horn of the friend’s vanity, and that of conscience and public opinion—may be avoided by merely saying nothing at all, when there is nothing at all of commendation to say. But shifts such as these must obviously fail the editor in the attempt at any general discussion of a branch of letters where the claimants of his notice are so numerous as in that of Romance. Here the difficulty is not of one acquaintance, but of many. Here the greatest insult would be the absolute silence. Here, if he desire not a total loss of his labor—if he would not weary by common-place; or become suspected through equivocation; or disgust by indiscrimitimidity—here there is no course left him but the straightest and the shortest—there is no path open but that of a rigid impartiality—of the sternest and most uncompromising truth.

      Thus nothing has been accomplished in the way of that general and connected analysis which we propose. That such an analysis is desirable should not be doubted. A very few, perhaps,