A NOVELIST ON NOVELS
_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_
NOVELS:
A BED OF ROSES THE CITY OF NIGHT ISRAEL KALISCH[1] THE MAKING OF AN ENGLISHMAN[2] THE SECOND BLOOMING THE STRANGERS' WEDDING OLGA NAZIMOV (Short Stories)
MISCELLANEOUS:
WOMAN AND TO-MORROW ANATOLE FRANCE DRAMATIC ACTUALITIES THE INTELLIGENCE OF WOMAN ETC.
[Footnote 1: Published in the U.S.A. and Canada under the title, 'Until the Day Break']
[Footnote 2: Published in the U.S.A. and Canada under the title, 'The Little Beloved']
A NOVELIST ON NOVELS
BY W. L. GEORGE
LONDON: 48 PALL MALL W. COLLINS SONS & CO. LTD. GLASGOW MELBOURNE AUCKLAND
Copyright 1918
NOTE
The chapters that follow have been written in varying moods, and express the fluctuating feelings aroused in the author by the modern novel and its treatment at the hands of the public. Though unrelated with the novel, the chapters on 'Falstaff,' 'The Esperanto of Art,' and 'The Twilight of Genius' have been included, either because artistically in keeping with other chapters, or because their general implications affect the fiction form.
A half of the book has not before now been published in Great Britain and Dominions.
CONTENTS
PAGE
A DECEPTIVE DEDICATION 1
LITANY OF THE NOVELIST 24
WHO IS THE MAN? 62
THREE YOUNG NOVELISTS:
1. _D. H. LAWRENCE_ 90
2. _AMBER REEVES_ 101
3. _SHEILA KAYE-SMITH_ 109
FORM AND THE NOVEL 118
SINCERITY: THE PUBLISHER AND THE POLICEMAN 124
THREE COMIC GIANTS:
1. _TARTARIN_ 147
2. _FALSTAFF_ 161
3. _MUeNCHAUSEN_ 177
Table of contents (by pages)
- 1: A Novelist on Novels by W. L. George
- 2: Just as some gentlemen are bounders
- 3: I think Mr Bottomley would like to have Mr Waugh shot
- 4: Is addicted to the monthly reviews
- 5: Whom Mr Arnold Bennett delighteth to revile
- 6: Certainly Mr Arnold Bennett does nothing for them
- 7: The bulk of the works of Thackeray
- 8: We novelists are the showmen of life
- 9: But that Angeline's husband's boots are blacked
- 10: Who can be scheduled and classified
- 11: The novelist amounts to a poster
- 12: Such as the Commandership of the Bath
- 13: But alone the grocers were consulted
- 14: One can be dignified on L5000 a year
- 15: Out of whom only sixty three are novelists
- 16: To sell to a circulating library is not selling
- 17: They apologise and say something about resting the brain
- 18: ' Miss Matheson goes so far as to introduce a shadowy
- 19: The bourgeoisie has congestion of the brain
- 20: And then from hour to hour we rot and rot
- 21: The literary tradition is changing
- 22: But very exciting time that is Mr Cannan
- 23: The Early History of Jacob Stahl
- 24: Mr Compton Mackenzie is the most interesting because
- 25: Mr Oliver Onions can be judged only on his trilogy
- 26: But Mr Swinnerton has a point of view
- 27: If Mr Forster chooses to return to the field
- 28: Lawrence is one of the youngest
- 29: Mr Lawrence looks Pippa passes
- 30: Sigmund appears small and weak
- 31: For Miss Reeves had just come down from Newnham
- 32: Miss Amber Reeves was a spoilt child
- 33: That Miss Amber Reeves realises herself
- 34: Sheila Kaye Smith is not a painter
- 35: Sheila Kaye Smith's most brilliant flight
- 36: But that will create a new essence
- 37: While the older novelists were static
- 38: Quite elderly and still more ladylike
- 39: ' Need I say more than that Madame Bovary
- 40: The Yoke enjoyed a large sale at 6s
- 41: There is Le Journal d'une Femme de Chambre
- 42: I do not suggest that they wish to be insincere
- 43: There is no market for pornography
- 44: He is the creature of Alphonse Daudet
- 45: Tartarin won because he was vital
- 46: Nor do the prudent Tarasconnais attempt to seek them out
- 47: 'The Tarasconnais type is the Frenchman magnified
- 48: Tartarin de Tarascon is by far the best of the three books
- 49: Falstaff is more than a coward
- 50: Greensleeves was my heart of gold
- 51: Falstaff does and does not lie
- 52: That Englishman is not quite Falstaff
- 53: Arch thing beloved of Muenchausen
- 54: But a comic fate pursues Muenchausen
- 55: Muenchausen accepted his own enormity
- 56: Muenchausen has no use for women
- 57: Van Gogh was right for himself
- 58: It follows that concentration is in inverse ratio to area
- 59: Kinetic we touch the most vital portion of the subject
- 60: While the key remains uniform
- 61: While the Futurists understand very well intensity
- 62: Once defined by intellect and applied by intellect
- 63: One imagines genius as ravelling its hair
- 64: The genius of Napoleon lies in the generality of his mind
- 65: For as one reads Mr Anatole France
- 66: Though it be true that genius is volcanic
- 67: He will continue to grow denationalised
- 68: And the time of the Dreisers is not yet
- 69: The American millionaires with their demon cars
- 70: Genius cannot find this solitude
- 71: No educated man can discover a serum
- 72: Romance is the quest of the unknown thing
- 73: They must be a little like the mob be the super mob