Fictitious composition is now admitted to form an extensive and important
portion of literature. Well-wrought novels take their rank by the side
of real narratives, and are appealed to as evidence in all questions
concerning man. In them the customs of countries, the transitions and
shades of character, and even the very peculiarities of costume and
dialect, are curiously preserved; and the imperishable spirit that
surrounds and keeps them for the use of successive generations renders
the rarities for ever fresh and green. In them human life is laid
down as on a map. The strong and vivid exhibitions of passion and of
character which they furnish, acquire and maintain the strongest hold
upon the curiosity, and, it may be added, the affections of every class
of readers; for not only is entertainment in all the various moods
of tragedy and comedy provided in their pages, but he who reads them
attentively may often obtain, without the bitterness and danger of
experience, that knowledge of his fellow-creatures which but for such aid
could, in the majority of cases, be only acquired at a period of life too
late to turn it to account.
This “Library of Select Novels” will embrace none but such as have
received the impress of general approbation, or have been written by
authors of established character; and the publishers hope to receive such
encouragement from the public patronage as will enable them in the course
of time to produce a series of works of uniform appearance, and including
most of the really valuable novels and romances that have been or shall
be issued from the modern English and American press.
There is scarcely any question connected with the interests of literature
which has been more thoroughly discussed and investigated than that of
the utility or evil of novel reading. In its favour much may be and has
been said, and it must be admitted that the reasonings of those who
believe novels to be injurious, or at least useless, are not without
force and plausibility. Yet, if the arguments against novels are closely
examined, it will be found that they are more applicable in general
to excessive indulgence in the pleasures afforded by the perusal of
fictitious adventures than to the works themselves; and that the evils
which can be justly ascribed to them arise almost exclusively, not from
any peculiar noxious qualities that can be fairly attributed to novels as
a species, but from those individual works which in their class must be
pronounced to be indifferent.
But even were it otherwise—were novels of every kind, the good as well
as the bad, the striking and animated not less than the puerile, indeed
liable to the charge of enfeebling or perverting the mind; and were
there no qualities in any which might render them instructive as well
as amusing—the universal acceptation which they have ever received,
and still continue to receive, from all ages and classes of men, would
prove an irresistible incentive to their production. The remonstrances
of moralists and the reasonings of philosophy have ever been, and will
still be found, unavailing against the desire to partake of an enjoyment
so attractive. Men will read novels; and therefore the utmost that wisdom
and philanthropy can do is to cater prudently for the public appetite,
and, as it is hopeless to attempt the exclusion of fictitious writings
from the shelves of the library, to see that they are encumbered with
the least possible number of such as have no other merit than that of
novelty.
“The works of our elder dramatists, _as hitherto edited_, are wholly
unfit to be placed in the hands of young persons, or of females of
any age, or even to be thought of for a moment as furniture for the
drawing-room table, and the parlour-window, or to form the solace of a
family circle at the fireside. What lady will ever confess that she has
read and understood Massinger, or Ford, or even Beaumont and Fletcher?
There is hardly a single piece in any of those authors which does not
contain more abominable passages than the very worst of modern panders
would ever dream of hazarding in print—and there are whole plays in Ford,
and in Beaumont and Fletcher, the very essence and substance of which
is, from beginning to end, one mass of pollution. The works, therefore,
of these immortal men have hitherto been library, not drawing-room
books;—and we have not a doubt, that, down to this moment, they have
been carefully excluded, _in toto_, from the vast majority of those
English houses in which their divine poetry, if stripped of its deforming
accompaniments, would have been ministering the most effectually to the
instruction and delight of our countrymen, and, above all, of our fair
countrywomen.
“We welcome, therefore, the appearance of the _Dramatic Series_ of the
_Family Library_ with no ordinary feelings of satisfaction. We are now
sure that, ere many months elapse, the productions of those distinguished
bards—all of them that is worthy of their genius, their taste, and the
acceptation of a moral and refined people—will be placed within reach of
every circle from which their very names have hitherto been sufficient
to exclude them, in a shape such as must command confidence, and richly
reward it. The text will be presented pure and correct, wherever it
is fit to be presented at all—every word and passage offensive to the
modest ear will be omitted; and means adopted, through the notes, of
preserving the sense and story entire, in spite of these necessary
erasures. If this were all, it would be a great deal—but the editors
undertake much more. They will furnish, in their preliminary notices, and
in their notes, clear accounts of the origin, structure, and object of
every piece, and the substance of all that sound criticism has brought
to their illustration, divested, however, of the personal squabbles
and controversies which so heavily and offensively load the bottoms
of the pages in the best existing editions of our dramatic worthies.
Lives of the authors will be given; and if they be all drawn up with
the skill and elegance which mark the Life of Massinger, in the first
volume, these alone will form a standard addition to our biographical
literature.”—_Literary Gazette._
“The early British Drama forms so important a portion of our literature,
that a ‘_Family Library_’ would be incomplete without it. A formidable
obstacle to the publication of our early plays, however, consists in the
occasional impurity of their dialogue. The editors of the Family Library
have, therefore, judiciously determined on publishing a selection of
old plays, omitting all such passages as are inconsistent with modern
delicacy. The task of separation requires great skill and discretion, but
these qualities we have no apprehension of not finding, in the fullest
degree requisite, in the editors, who, by this purifying process, will
perform a service both to the public and to the authors, whom they will
thereby draw forth from unmerited obscurity.”—_Asiatic Journal._
“The first number of the ‘Dramatic Series’ of this work commences with
the Plays of MASSINGER; and the lovers of poetry and the drama may now,
for the first time, possess the works of all the distinguished writers of
the renowned Elizabethan age, at a cost which most pockets can bear; in
a form and style, too, which would recommend them to the most tasteful
book collector. A portrait of Massinger adorns the first volume; and
what little is known of the dramatist is given in a short account of his
life.”—_Examiner._