JF Ptak Science Books Post 2120
"Mr. Bulwer, through art, has almost created a genius. Mr. Dickens, through genius, has perfected a standard from which Art itself will derive its essence, in rules."--E.A. Poe on Charles Dickens, 1841.
[Image source: National Park Service]
Edgar Allan Poe was a brilliant and insightful and more-than-occasionally a vicious/wicked surgeon as literary critic--in his collected works there is one entire volume dedicated to those works, and it is well worth a read.
Poe reviewed Master Humphrey’s Clock and The Old Curiosity Shop for the May 1841 issue of Graham’s Magazine--that's because they were written and published serially at about the same time, both ending in late 1841, and written by a man who was seemingly several brilliant writers at the same time. (fFor all that he wrote, he must have been several people, because he managed to do it all in a life-span of 58 years1.)
He says
something of Dickens that is pretty remarkable. To be sure he was not always this glowing, and not necessarily supportive, and was a razor-sharp critic when the need arose--that need seemingly being most of the time)--but this is what he had to say on Dickens, and it reads quite true to me:
"The Art of Mr. Dickens, although elaborate and great, seems only a happy modification of Nature. In this respect he differs remarkably from the author [Edward Bulwer Lytton] of Night and Morning [1841]. The latter, by excessive care and by patient reflection, aided by much rhetorical knowledge, and general information, has arrived at the capability of producing books which be mistaken by ninety-nine readers out of a hundred for the genuine inspirations of genius. The former, by the promptings of .the truest genius itself, has been brought to compose, and evidently without effort, works which have effected a long-sought consummation- which have rendered him the idol of the people, while defying and enchanting the critics. Mr. Bulwer, through art, has almost created a genius. Mr. Dickens, through genius, has perfected a standard from which Art itself will derive its essence, in rules."
Notes:
For the full review, see: http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/poe/dickens.html
Also, for an itneresting blog that treats the subject of Poe's reviews of Dickens, see The World of Poe blog, here
Also see an earlier post on this blog from another angle, this one written by Henry James in 1865, here.
1. And just for the record, here's a list of Dickens' books, all written somehow by one man:
1836 Sketches by Boz
1836-7 Pickwick Papers
1837-9 Oliver Twist
1838-9 Nicholas Nickleby
1840 Master Humphrey's Clock
1840-1 The Old Curiosity Shop
1841 Barnaby Rudge
1842 American Notes
1843 A Christmas Carol
1843-4 Martin Chuzzlewit
1844 The Chimes
1845 The Cricket on the Hearth
1846 The Battle of Life
1846 Pictures from Italy
1846-8 Dombey and Son
1848 The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain
1849-50 David Copperfield
1852-3 Bleak House
1852-4 A Child's History of England
1854 Hard Times
1855-7 Little Dorrit
1859 A Tale of Two Cities
1860-1 Great Expectations
1864-5 Our Mutual Friend
1870 The Mystery of Edwin Drood
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