She attempts to show how the trials, perplexities, joys, sorrows,
labors, and successes of life deepen or wither the character according
to its inward bent.
She cares to teach, _not_ how dishonesty is always plunging men into
infinitely more complicated external difficulties than it would in real
life, but how any continued insincerity gradually darkens and corrupts
the very life-springs of the mind: _not_ how all events conspire to
crush an unreal being who is to be the "example" of the story, but how
every event, adverse or fortunate, tends to strengthen and expand a high
mind, and to break the springs of a selfish or merely weak and
self-indulgent nature.
She does not limit herself to domestic conversations, and the mere shock
of character on character; she includes a large range of events--the
influence of worldly successes and failures--the risks of commercial
enterprises--the power of social position--in short, the various
elements of a wider economy than that generally admitted into a tale.
She has a true respect for her work, and never permits herself to "make
books," and yet she has evidently very great facility in making them.
There are few writers who have exhibited a more marked progress, whether
in freedom of touch or in depth of purpose, than the authoress of "The
Ogilvies" and "John Halifax."
Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York.
--> _HARPER & BROTHERS will send the above works by mail, postage paid,
to any part of the United States, on receipt of the price._
TENNYSON'S
COMPLETE
POETICAL WORKS.
[Illustration {Alfred, Lord Tennyson}]
POETICAL WORKS OF ALFRED TENNYSON, Poet Laureate. With numerous
Illustrations and Three Characteristic Portraits. Forty-fifth Thousand.
Including many Poems not hitherto contained in his collected works. New
Edition, containing "The Window; or, The Loves of the Wrens;" with Music
by Arthur Sullivan. 8vo, Paper, 75 cents; Cloth, $1 25.
Tennyson is, without exception, the most popular of living poets.
Wherever the English language is spoken, in America as well as in
England, his name has become familiar as a household word, and some
volume of the many he has published is to be found in almost every
library. For several years a complete cheap edition of his poetical
works has been an acknowledged desideratum. Messrs. Harper & Brothers,
taking advantage of the conclusion of the Arthurian Poems, have now
supplied this want by publishing an attractive household edition of the
Laureate's poems, in one volume, clearly and handsomely printed, and
illustrated with many engravings after designs by Gustave Dore,
Rossetti, Stanfield, W. H. Hunt, and other eminent artists. The volume
contains every line the Laureate has ever published, including the
latest of his productions, which complete the noble cycle of Arthurian
legends, and raise them from a fragmentary series of exquisite cabinet
pictures into a magnificent tragic epic, of which the theme is the
gradual dethronement of Arthur from his spiritual rule over his order,
through the crime of Guinevere and Lancelot; the spread of their
infectious guilt, till it breaks up the oneness of the realm, and the
Order of the Round Table is shattered, and the ideal king, deserted by
many of his own knights, and deeply wounded in the last great battle
with the traitor and the heathen, vanishes into the darkness of the
world beyond.
The print is clear and excellent; the paper is good; the volume has
illustrations from Dore, Millais, and other great artists. Really, the
edition is a sort of prodigy in its way. --_Independent._
Those who want a perfect and complete edition of the works of the great
English Poet Laureate should purchase the Harper edition. --_Troy
Budget._