Blackie's "Library of Great Novelists," c. 1900
The catalogs in the back of my popular Victorian novels are always an interesting read (and a practical one: I've found a number of useful books that way). After finishing up J. M. Callwell's A Champion of the Faith (1900) earlier this evening, I paged through the Blackie & Son catalog at the back, and was intrigued by their "Library of Great Novelists" (clothbound, "best artists," and gilt):
- W. M. Thackeray, The Newcomes
- Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre
- Mrs. [Dinah Mulock] Craik, John Halifax, Gentleman
- Anthony Trollope, Barchester Towers and Framley Parsonage
- Mrs. [Elizabeth] Gaskell, Cranford
- Charles Lever, Harry Lorrequer and Tom Burke of "Ours"
- Charles Kingsley, Westward Ho!
- Lord Lytton, The Caxtons
- Charles Dickens, David Copperfield
- Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
- Wilkie Collins, After Dark
- George Borrow, Lavengro
- James Morier, Hajji Baba
- George Eliot, Scenes of Clerical Life and Mill on the Floss
- Sir Walter Scott, The Heart of Midlothian
- Maria Edgeworth, Ormond
- Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter
- [Benjamin Disraeli], Lord Beaconsfield, Coningsby
From an early twenty-first century perspective, this list is simultaneously familiar and bizarre. Only the specialist will have heard of James Morier, George Borrow, Dinah Craik, and (in all likelihood) Maria Edgeworth. Disraeli, Kingsley, and Lytton don't quite seem to belong on the same list with Austen, Dickens, and Eliot--although they are all important second-rank figures, to be sure. Moreover, most twenty-first century types would substitute Sybil for Coningsby, Alton Locke for Westward Ho!, and...um...oy...er...well, The Last Days of Pompeii for The Caxtons. Anthony Trollope occupies an uneasy middle ground between the second- and first-rank novelists on the list, and I suspect that we'd want to substitute The Way We Live Now (not especially popular in the nineteenth century) for one of the novels on the list. Scott is in a similarly awkward position, although most would agree that The Heart of Midlothian is a logical choice. Mrs. Gaskell hovers on the brink as well, and many would swap Mary Barton, North and South, or Sylvia's Lovers for Cranford. Thackeray and Collins are represented by decidedly odd novels from their oeuvres, as is half the case with Eliot (Scenes from Clerical Life?! Really?). Only the Dickens, Hawthorne, Austen, and Bronte selections make perfect sense to a modern reader, I think. (Incidentally, if you're looking for a canon set in stone--literally--you might want to drop in on the Chicago Cultural Center's Preston Bradley Hall; most of the "greats" on the walls still make sense, but there are some oddballs. Lytton as one of the all-time great novelists? Scott as one of the all-time great poets? If I'm remembering correctly, the Irish poet Thomas Moore makes the cut as well.)