The Reception of George Meredith's Early Novels

Abstract

E _XISTING TREATMENTS of Meredith's reception are inadequate and often misleading because a number of important reviews have been overlooked. Commentators writing after the publication of M. B. Forman's Meredithiana (Edinburgh, 1924) have assumed that its catalogue of reviews is complete,' while earlier critics, including Rene Galland,2 have relied on lists that are much more inadequate. A reconsideration of Meredith's early reception has revealed that Forman omitted over a hundred reviews of the prose works from The Shaving of Shagpat to The Egoist (1855-1879) alone, and by no means all are from out-of-the-way periodicals. Many of these reviews are important for three main reasons: first, they serve to enlarge or modify current views of Meredith's reception; second, they illuminate the novels by providing contemporary views of some critical interest which are not represented in the known press notices; third, they add to existing knowledge of contemporary taste and critical standards. Futhermore, the reviews serve to illustrate that fiction was more widely and competently reviewed in Victorian times than is often recognized. These neglected reviews will be mainly concentrated on here. Details of them have been collected in a bibliography at the end of the article. The known reviews that are drawn upon will be documented in footnotes. Before a detailed discussion is undertaken, some general points arising from a reconsideration of Meredith's reception deserve