A Victorian reviewer on controversial fiction (1842)

"Father Oswald ; a Genuine Catholic Story," fortunately is comprised in one neat volume. We say fortunately, not only because it has saved us a considerable amount of trouble, but that religious, especially controversially theological, fictions, can neither be very faithful pictures of life or character, nor attractive reading to neutral parties, even when truthful representations. To be truthful, however, is next to impossible; so that they generally serve to aggravate and to embitter that which was before offensively virulent. When a partisan sets about feigning personages, actions, and situations, how can he avoid making them to suit exactly his own notions and purposes? And seeing that in nothing do men adopt more narrow and false notions than when they have to figure to themselves what are the religious creeds and practices of other classes, one may be sure that truth, although intentionally sought, can hardly ever be attained in this way.

--"Novels," The Monthly Review 3.4 (December 1842): 520.