A Guide to the Best Historical Novels and Tales | Page 5

"Ben
Hur" ought to satisfy two different types of readers. And this is the
place, doubtless, to say that in my lists will be found books of widely
differing merit and aim. School teachers, and others in like capacity,
will easily discriminate between authors suitable for juvenile or
untrained tastes, and authors whose appeal is specially to those of
maturer thought and experience. Differing as much in method and style
as in choice of period and character type, Thackeray's "Vanity Fair"
and George Eliot's "Romola" have at least this in common--they require
a very high degree of intelligence for their due appreciation. Who,
among those of us with any knowledge of such works, would dream of
recommending them to a youthful reader fresh from the perusal of Miss
Yonge's "Little Duke," or Captain Marryatt's "Children of the New
Forest"?

Naturally in a list of this kind there is bound to be very great inequality;
certain periods have been wholly ignored by writers of the first rank,
while in others we have something like an embarras de richesse.
Consequently, I have been compelled, here and there, to insert authors
of only mediocre merit. In other cases, again, I have not hesitated to
omit works by writers of acknowledged position when these have
seemed below the author's usual standard, and where no gap had to be
filled. I would instance the James II.- William III. period. Here Stanley
Weyman and "Edna Lyall" might have been represented, but, there
being no dearth of good novels dealing with both the above reigns, I
did not deem it advisable to call in these popular writers at the point
which has been very generally considered their lowest. I mention this to
show that omissions do not necessarily mean ignorance, though, in
covering such an immense ground, I cannot doubt that romances
worthy of a place in my list have been overlooked.
I think many will be surprised to find how large a proportion of our
best writers (English and American) have entered the domain of
Historical or Semi-Historical Romance. Scott, Thackeray, Dickens,
George Eliot, Charlotte Bronte, George Meredith, R. L. Stevenson,
Hawthorne, Peacock, Charles Kingsley, Henry Kingsley, Charles
Reade, Anthony Trollope, Mrs. Gaskell, Walter Besant, Lytton,
Disraeli, J. H. Newman, J. A. Froude, and Walter Pater--these are a few
of the names which appear in the following pages; while Tolstoy,
Dumas, Balzac, George Sand, Victor Hugo, De Vigny, Prosper
Merimee, Flaubert, Theophile Gautier, Freytag, Scheffel, Hauff,
Auerbach, Manzoni, Perez Galdos, Merejkowski, Topelius,
Sienkiewicz, and Jokai are, perhaps, the chief amongst those
representing Literatures other than our own.
"The Last Days of Pompeii," "The Gladiators," "Hypatia," "Harold,"
"Ivanhoe," "The Talisman," "Maid Marian," "The Last of the Barons,"
"Quentin Durward," "Romola," "The Cloister and the Hearth," "The
Palace of the King," "Westward Ho!", "Kenilworth," "The Chaplet of
Pearls," "A Gentleman of France," "John Inglesant," "The Three
Musketeers," "Twenty Years After," "Woodstock," "Peveril of the
Peak," "Old Mortality," " The Betrothed Lovers" ("I Promessi Sposi"),

"Lorna Doone," "The Refugees," "In the Golden Days," "The Courtship
of Morice Buckler," "Dorothy Forster," "The Men of the Moss Hags,"
"Esmond," "The Virginians," "Heart of Midlothian," "Waverley," "The
Master of Ballantrae," "Kidnapped," "Catriona," "The Chaplain of the
Fleet," "The Seats of the Mighty," "Barnaby Rudge," "A Tale of Two
Cities," "War and Peace"--what visions do these mere titles arouse
within many of us! And, though most of the books given in my list
cannot be described in the same glowing terms as the masterpieces just
named, yet many "nests of pleasant thoughts" may be formed through
their companionship.
Hitherto allusion has been mainly in the direction of modern authors,
and I would now say a word or two in regard to those of an earlier
period who are also represented. Defoe, Fielding, Richardson,
Goldsmith, Smollett, Frances Burney, Samuel Lover, John Galt, Maria
Edgeworth, Susan Ferrier, William Godwin, Mary Shelley, Fennimore
Cooper, J. G. Lockhart, Leigh Hunt, Thos. Moore, Harriet Martineau, J.
L. Motley, Horace Smith, Charles Lever, Meadows Taylor, and Wm.
Carleton,--these (in greater or less degree) notable names were bound
to have a place; and, coming to less distinguished writers, I may
mention the brothers Banim, Gerald Griffin, Mrs. S. C. Hall, Lady
Morgan, the sisters Porter, W. G. Simms, George Croly, Albert Smith,
G. R. Gleig, W. H. Maxwell, Sir Arthur Helps, Eliot Warburton, Lewis
Wingfield, Thomas Miller, C. Macfarlane, Grace Aguilar, Anne
Manning, and Emma Robinson (author of "Whitefriars"). To G. P. R.
James, Harrison Ainsworth, and James Grant I have previously alluded.
It has been my endeavour to choose the best examples of all the
above-named novelists--a task rendered specially difficult in some
cases by the fact of immense literary output. Doubtless not a few of the
works so chosen are open to criticism, but they will at least serve to