A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 To the Close of the 19th Century

In arranging this volume I have thought it worth while to include, in a single chapter and _nominatim_ in the title thereof, five writers of prose novels or tales; all belonging...

The remaining novelists of the Third Republic, apart from the survivors of the Second Empire and the Naturalist School, need not occupy us very long, but must have some space. T...

If I were writing this _History_ on the lines which some of my critics (of whom, let it be observed, I do not make the least complaint) seem to prefer, or at least to miss their...

The mediocre poet has had a hard fate pronounced against him of old; but the minor novelist, perhaps because he is much more likely to get some good things in his own time, has...

If any excuse is needed for the oddity of the title of this chapter, it will not be to readers of Burton's _Anatomy_. The way in which the phrase "Those six non-natural things"...

There is always a risk (as any one who remembers a somewhat ludicrous outburst of indignation, twenty or thirty years ago, among certain English versemen will acknowledge) in us...

There may possibly be some readers who might prefer that the two novelists whose names head this chapter should be treated each in a chapter to himself. But after trying several...

It has often been thought, and sometimes said, that the period of the French Revolution and of the Napoleonic wars--extending as it does strictly to more than a quarter of a cen...

At the present day, and perhaps in all days hitherto, the greatest writer of the nineteenth century in France for length of practice, diversity of administration of genius, heig...

No one who has not had some experience in writing literary history knows the difficulties--or perhaps I should say the "unsatisfactorinesses"--which attend the shepherding of ex...

There is a Scotch proverb (not, I think, among those most generally known), "Never tell your foe when your foot sleeps"; and some have held that this applies specially to the re...

It was not found necessary, in the last volume, to suspend the current of narrative or survey for the purpose of drawing interim conclusions in special "Interchapters."[328] But...

With Dumas[311] _pere_ the same difficulties (or nearly the same) of general and particular nature present themselves as those which occurred with Balzac. There is, again, the t...

In doing, as may at least be hoped, justice to M. Alexandre Dumas _fils_ in the last chapter, one point was excepted--that though I could rank him higher than I ever expected to...

false dawns of Love itself, while in other respects he is _romantique a tous crins_. Compare _Le Reve_ with _La Tentation_ or _Saint-Julien l'Hospitalier_; compare _Madame Bovar...

Gautier: his burden of "style"--Abstract (with translations) of _La Morte Amoureuse_--Criticism thereof--A parallel from painting--The reality--And the passion of it--Other shor...

The beginnings--"Les deux Goncourts"--Their work--The novels--_Germinie Lacerteux_ and _Cherie_ taken as specimens--The impression produced by them--The rottenness of their theo...

Beyle: his peculiarity--_Armance_--_La Chartreuse de Parme_--The Waterloo episode--The subject and general colour--_L'Abbesse de Castro_, etc.--_Le Rouge et le Noir_--Beyle's ma...

Feuillet--His novels generally--Brief notes on some: _Le Roman d'un jeune homme pauvre_--_M. de Camors_--Other books--_La Petite Comtesse_--_Julia de Trecoeur_--_Honneur d'Artis...

The fate of popular minor novelists--Examples of them--Paul de Kock--_L'Enfant de ma Femme_--_Petits Tableaux de Moeurs_--_Gustave_--The caricatured _Anglais_--_Edmond et sa Cou...

Sainte-Beuve: _Volupte_--Its "puff-book"--Itself--Its character in various aspects--Jules Sandeau and Charles de Bernard--Sandeau's work--Bernard's--Sue, Soulie, and the novel o...

Reasons for beginning with Mme. de Stael--_Delphine_--The tone--The story--_Corinne_--Its improved conditions--An illustrated edition of it--The story--The character of Nelvil--...

George Sand: generalities about her--Note on _Elle et Lui_, etc., and on _Un Hiver a Majorque_--Phases of her work--_Indiana_--_Valentine_--_Lelia_--The moral of the group and i...

The last stage--Ferdinand Fabre--_L'Abbe Tigrane_--_Norine_, etc.--_Le Marquis de Pierrerue_--_Mon Oncle Celestin_--_Lucifer_--_Sylviane_ and _Taillevent_--_Toussaint Galabru_--...

Division of future subjects--A confession--His general character--_La Dame aux Camelias_--_Tristan le Roux_--_Antonine_--_La Vie a Vingt Ans_--_Aventures de Quatre Femmes_--_Tro...

Limitations--_Han d'Islande_--_Bug-Jargal_--_Le Dernier Jour d'un Condamne_--_Claude Gueux_--_Notre-Dame de Paris_--The story easy to anticipate--Importance of the actual _title...

The peculiarity of the moment--A political nadir--And almost a literary zenith--The performance of the time in novel--The _personnel_--The kinds: the historical novel--Appearanc...

The case of Dumas--Charge and discharge--Morality--Plagiarism and devilling--The collaborators?--The positive value as fiction and as literature of the books: the less worthy wo...