The Westminster Review and American Literature, 1824-1885

Abstract

THE PRINTED reaction of nineteenth-century England to American literature is one of the most interesting facets of the cultural relations between the two countries. It is likewise most informative and helpful to us in our attempt to understand the significance of that turbulent century from which have stemmed so many of the complexities of our own unstable time. Literature and its criticism have never existed in a vacuum, and it is illuminating to see what parts they have played in the minds of men during an important period of history. This paper is a contribution to the study of that problem. It seeks to describe the critical reception of America's literary production by one of the great British political and literary quarterlies, the Westminster Review, and to set forth some of the impressions about American books which its English and American readers might have received from its pages. The study begins with the founding of the Review, in I824 and continues to I885, a date which is sometimes used to mark the end of Victorianism, although the great Queen herself lived to I9OI and the quarterly continued publication for thirteen years after that. The Westminster Review was founded as the official organ of the philosophical radicals and acted as the carrier of many of the ideas which helped shape Victorian England. The story of its first twelve years has been told by George L. Nesbitt, who should be consulted for a full account.' A part of its history needs to be summarized here for our purposes. It began publication in I824 under the aegis of Jeremy Bentham himself although he did not take an active editorial role, leaving this to certain of his younger disciples who kept in close consultation with him. The prospectus, which appeared before the first number, dedicated the review to the interests of the majority-meaning the