ABOUT NOVELS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 252, 21 October 1908, Page 6

ABOUT NOVELS.

(By ROBT. H. BAKEWELL, MJ>.)

I was asked a few days ago whether I : I ever read novels. I took the question j • as a compliment, as implying, that in the opinion of my questioner, my read- . iag would be confined to medical works, or philosophical or critical ones. But it amused mc, because it sounded almost like asking a fish if it was in the habit of Ewimming. I must have read thousands of talcs, novels, and romances in my time, and now I read raore novels and other light literature than ever. "The- recent prosecutions in Christ-) church of booksellers for selling immoral j (is it immoral?) or indecent tales, has set mc thinking about the subject of J novel reading, especially for young people. When I was a boy I was most strictly prohibited from reading novels. I One of the severest canings I ever received from my father was given me] because he found one of the Waverley novels bidden under my pillow. I suppose it can hardly seem credible that such thoroughly moral and instructive books as the novels of Sir Walter Scott could ever have been forbidden. But so it was. When I grew- to manhood, I made some enquiries as to why these excellent tales should have been condemned, and found that it was because the best characters in them were i-epresented as j actuated by merely moral motives, and were not in any instance persons who j showed any signs of being truly converted 1 The first novel that broke down the j exclusivcness oi the Evangelical party ] about novel-reading was Mrs. Harriet j Beeeher Stowe's tala of slavery, entitled I "Unc}e Tom." This book, when it first j appeared, and for years after, had the most amazing popularity. Editions by j the dozen appeared in England, for there" ■was no copyright then between Great Britain and the States, and it was sold ■by hundreds of thousands. It was translated into all the chief European languages, and was made into a play, which i= still acted occasionally, both in France and England. I believe that everybody in England who could read, read "Uncle Tom." Topsy, a little nigger girl, who w _ as a perfect imp of mischief, was quoted everywhere, and Uncle Tom himself was an universal favourite. The book, it was said, had a larger sale than g.ny other book in English except the Pilgrim's Progress. And yet I don't suppose you could find in any bookseller's shop in Auckland a copy of either book. This book, besides being written by the daughter and sister of evangelical ministers, had such a highly moral and religious tone that the Puritan part of the British public accepted it joyfully. It was followed by "The Wide, Wide World," "Queechy," and some other books by Mrs. Bcecher Stowe. The ice was broken, ai any rate, and from thence forward religious novels, tales in religious periodicals, and even novels or tales not distinctly religious, but having a moral tone, were tolerated by all the sects. But, at the same time, there were certain tales, mostly written in the ISth century, which, although they had attained some literary celebrity, and were, ajid are still, looked upon by some critics a3 classics, were, forbidden to the young. I allude espwrially to Fielding's and Smollett's novels, and even to Richardson's "Clarissa Harlowe." They were forbidden, and rightly so, not merely on account of the coarseness of the language, but because they containp.7i indecent- scenes and descriptions. For precisely the same reason, Shakespeare's plays, in the unexpurgated editions, were forbidden. So was Byron's "Don Juan." Now a question which has been much discussed, and is not even now positively settled, is whether works of fiction having a distinctly immoral tendency, or containing descriptions or passages that no one could reai3"aloud in any mixed assemblage of men and women, should be sold openly in shops. I suppose nobody will expect an" old man, who has passed sixty years of his life in his study and practice of medicine, to be particularly squeamish. It is forty or fifty years since I read any of Smollett's tales, or Shakespeare's " Venus and Adonis," and my recollection of them is not very dear. But such as I have does not tempt mc to refresh my meory of them. Smollett disgusted mc with his coarseness, but yet to a student of history, desirous of knowing what life in the navy was in the "good old days," his tales are invaluable. To anyone else they are certainly nauseating. A few months ago I read a review of Fielding's " Tom Jones " by some critic j who lavished praise on it. I hai tried to : read it once or twice before, but I could not get through the book, for it seemed to mc d-ull, stupid and wearisome. The characters were all persons of the most commonplace type, and the plot most un--interesting. However, I determined to see whether my present judement would agree with that of my mir' T e age, so 1 bought a cheap copy of "Tom Jones," and set to work to read it. But I found it impossible to persevere; I could not get through one half of it, and aitbougn I had a look at the conclusion, 1 did not succeed in plodding through one-half of the book. My own opinion is that, like Zola's books, nasty-minded people read* ""them for their nastiness, and that they '*■' have no other merit than being a faithful picture of the manners and! customs of the i English people in the very lowest period '■ • of our national history. Never have we, •Bunk so low as in the eighteenth century, i 7 - T know that some people will throw in ■ any. face that much-quoted saying, " To the pure all things are pure." 1 don't know where the quotation comes fromnor ; who wrote it, but I deny it altogether; ! ■ 'and, besides, I would ask, who is pure? >'70na celebrated occasion we know that '-"■.among a numerous assemblage of highly : "respectable men no man thought himself so free from sin as to be able to throw the first stone at the woman taken in adultery. But in fact there are scenes and descriptions andl sometimes spoken words, which stick like burrs Ln the memory, and are never forgotten. It is for this reason I hold that certain books should be prohibited, their republication made a criminal offence, and their sale punished by a heavy fine. Their perusal em do no possible good, and may do much harm. To mention the titles of such books would only lead) to advertise them. T. p to a period of last century novels' • were only published in three fOTms— either in periodicals or in monthly parts, or in three volumes at £1 11/G for the three. On such terms, novels were read only by subscribers to libraries. The periodical-; that printed novels were pub- , lished at either a shilling or half a crown a month, except a very few like "Chambers's Journal " or Dickens " Household Word's," which were weekly periodicals, and cost three-halfpence or twopence a week, or the ever popular "London Journal" or "Familyßerald. thecheapust of all as they were sold at a penny. 1 reniemfcer, when a boy, reading Miss BTaddon's first novel, " Henry Dunbar," which came out weekly in tha "London Journal,'' about the year 1845. The "London J our- &* " sww iHusterfed by wood engr_RH_3_

the " Family r Herald" never had any illustrations, but the was very good. Dickens, Thackeray -and Charles Lever published most of their novels in monthly parts at a shilling. Each part contained two steel engravings, -aid the novel raji into 20 or 24 numbers. Latterly, I think, the public got tired of these long-drawn out tales, and no subsequent writers have adopted this mode of- publication. The three-volume hovel was given up all at once, apparently by agreement among the publishers, for it suddenly ceased to exist, I think about 25 years ago, and was followed by the 6/ story or collection of stories in one volume. I suppose a few very rich people might buy novels in three volumes at a guinea and a-half, but I never knew anyone who did; everybody got them from the libraries. The institution of -Ma-die's Library in the late forties I well remember, as I | knew personally thp family. They first I had an ordinary bookseller's shop in Southampton-street, Blooinsbury. Their f'jther was a literary man, but little known. They wore the first -to have graduated subscriptions, from one guinea a year upwards. They soon moved down to their present premises, which have been greatly extended as their business increased. Instead of buying one or two copies, as other libraries had done, they largely increased the number, until of Averts likely to be in large demand they purchase hundreds of copies. W. H. : Smith and Co., of the Strand, originally I only newspaper agents in quite a small i way, added libraries in London and at I the railway stations to their business. I In all these ways the circulation and i sale of novels has increased amazingly, 'and I should think that for one novel ' sold in my younger days a hundred are I sold now. There-publication of popular j novels, after the copyright has expired, I must add many thousands to the readers, !as these reprints are made at a very 'low price. I We certainly have no such galaxy of I talent among the writers of fiction as I illuminated the mid-Victorian period. Thackeray, Bulwer Lytton, Charles and Henry Kingsley. Charles Lever, Anthony Trollope, Wilkie Collins, George Eliot, and most popular and most famous of all, Charles Dickens—these names cannot be equalled among the fiction writers of the present day. Every one of the writers T have named- has left one or more works which will be classical of its kind. Everyone, has created one or more characters which will live in English litera- | ture as long as English literature exists. And, it may be remarked, that without shirking any of the tragedies of real life, not one of them has written a. page which cannot be read aloud in a mixed company without exciting a.blush on the ■cheek of the most modest maide.n. They were pure writers. They .neglected, perhaps, the tone of the highest society in England—that of the Court. I am afraid I have allpwed myself to wander away from the topics I had intended to touch on, and run into gossip. But I must defer to another occasion a criticism, which. I had prepared, on novels of the present day. Arthur-street. Onehunga, October 17, 190 S.