Elizabeth Fry Part 12

EMILY BRONTe.

BY A. MARY F. ROBINSON.

"Miss Robinson has written a fascinating biography.... Emily Bronte is interesting, not because she wrote 'Wuthering Heights,' but because of her brave, baffled, human life, so lonely, so full of pain, but with a great hope s.h.i.+ning beyond all the darkness, and a pa.s.sionate defiance in bearing more than the burdens that were laid upon her. The story of the three sisters is infinitely sad, but it is the enn.o.bling sadness that belongs to large natures cramped and striving for freedom to heroic, almost desperate, work, with little or no result. The author of this intensely interesting, sympathetic, and eloquent biography, is a young lady and a poet, to whom a place is given in a recent anthology of living English poets, which is supposed to contain only the best poems of the best writers."--_Boston Daily Advertiser._

"Miss Robinson had many excellent qualifications for the task she has performed in this little volume, among which may be named, an enthusiastic interest in her subject and a real sympathy with Emily Bronte's sad and heroic life. 'To represent her as she was,' says Miss Robinson, 'would be her n.o.blest and most fitting monument.'...

Emily Bronte here becomes well known to us and, in one sense, this should be praise enough for any biography."--_New York Times._

"The biographer who finds such material before him as the lives and characters of the Bronte family need have no anxiety as to the interest of his work. Characters not only strong but so uniquely strong, genius so supreme, misfortunes so overwhelming, set in its scenery so forlornly picturesque, could not fail to attract all readers, if told even in the most prosaic language. When we add to this, that Miss Robinson has told their story _not_ in prosaic language, but with a literary style exhibiting all the qualities essential to good biography, our readers will understand that this life of Emily Bronte is not only as interesting as a novel, but a great deal more interesting than most novels. As it presents most vividly a general picture of the family, there seems hardly a reason for giving it Emily's name alone, except perhaps for the masterly chapters on 'Wuthering Heights,' which the reader will find a grateful condensation of the best in that powerful but somewhat forbidding story. We know of no point in the Bronte history--their genius, their surroundings, their faults, their happiness, their misery, their love and friends.h.i.+ps, their peculiarities, their power, their gentleness, their patience, their pride,--which Miss Robinson has not touched upon with conscientiousness and sympathy."--_The Critic._

"'Emily Bronte' is the second of the 'Famous Women Series,' which Roberts Brothers, Boston, propose to publish, and of which 'George Eliot' was the initial volume. Not the least remarkable of a very remarkable family, the personage whose life is here written, possesses a peculiar interest to all who are at all familiar with the sad and singular history of herself and her sister Charlotte.

That the author, Miss A. Mary F. Robinson, has done her work with minute fidelity to facts as well as affectionate devotion to the subject of her sketch, is plainly to be seen all through the book."--_Was.h.i.+ngton Post._

Famous Women Series.

MARGARET FULLER.

BY JULIA WARD HOWE.

"A memoir of the woman who first in New England took a position of moral and intellectual leaders.h.i.+p, by the woman who wrote the Battle Hymn of the Republic, is a literary event of no common or transient interest. The Famous Women Series will have no worthier subject and no more ill.u.s.trious biographer. Nor will the reader be disappointed,--for the narrative is deeply interesting and full of inspiration."--_Woman's Journal._

"Mrs. Julia Ward Howe's biography of _Margaret Fuller_, in the Famous Women Series of Messrs. Roberts Brothers, is a work which has been looked for with curiosity. It will not disappoint expectation. She has made a brilliant and an interesting book. Her study of Margaret Fuller's character is thoroughly sympathetic; her relation of her life is done in a graphic and at times a fascinating manner. It is the case of one woman of strong individuality depicting the points which made another one of the most marked characters of her day. It is always agreeable to follow Mrs. Howe in this; for while we see marks of her own mind constantly, there is no inartistic protrusion of her personality.

The book is always readable, and the relation of the death-scene is thrillingly impressive."--_Sat.u.r.day Gazette._

"Mrs. Julia Ward Howe has retold the story of Margaret Fuller's life and career in a very interesting manner. This remarkable woman was happy in having James Freeman Clarke, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and William Henry Channing, all of whom had been intimate with her and had felt the spell of her extraordinary personal influence, for her biographers. It is needless to say, of course, that nothing could be better than these reminiscences in their way."--_New York World._

"The selection of Mrs. Howe as the writer of this biography was a happy thought on the part of the editor of the series; for, aside from the natural appreciation she would have for Margaret Fuller, comes her knowledge of all the influences that had their effect on Margaret Fuller's life. She tells the story of Margaret Fuller's interesting life from all sources and from her own knowledge, not hesitating to use plenty of quotations when she felt that others, or even Margaret Fuller herself, had done the work better."--_Miss Gilder, in Philadelphia Press._

Famous Women Series.

MARIA EDGEWORTH.

BY HELEN ZIMMERN.

"This little volume shows good literary workmans.h.i.+p. It does not weary the reader with vague theories; nor does it give over much expression to the enthusiasm--not to say baseless encomium--for which too many female biographers have accustomed us to look. It is a simple and discriminative sketch of one of the most clever and lovable of the cla.s.s at whom Carlyle sneered as 'scribbling women.'... Of Maria Edgeworth, the woman, one cannot easily say too much in praise. That home life, so loving, so wise, and so helpful, was beautiful to its end. Miss Zimmern has treated it with delicate appreciation. Her book is refined in conception and tasteful in execution,--all, in short, the cynic might say, that we expect a woman's book to be."--_New York Tribune._

"It was high time that we should possess an adequate biography of this ornament and general benefactor of her time. And so we hail with uncommon pleasure the volume just published in the Roberts Brothers' series of Famous Women, of which it is the sixth. We have only words of praise for the manner in which Miss Zimmern has written her life of Maria Edgeworth. It exhibits sound judgment, critical a.n.a.lysis, and clear characterization.... The style of the volume is pure, limpid, and strong, as we might expect from a well-trained English writer."--_Margaret J. Preston, in the Home Journal._

"We can heartily recommend this life of Maria Edgeworth, not only because it is singularly readable in itself, but because it makes familiar to readers of the present age a notable figure in English literary history, with whose lineaments we suspect most readers, especially of the present generation, are less familiar than they ought to be."--_Eclectic._

"This biography contains several letters and papers by Miss Edgeworth that have not before been made public, notably some charming letters written during the latter part of her life to Dr.

Holland and Mr. and Mrs. Ticknor. The author had access to a life of Miss Edgeworth written by her step-mother, as well as to a large collection of her private letters, and has therefore been able to bring forward many facts in her life which have not been noted by other writers. The book is written in a pleasant vein, and is altogether a delightful one to read."--_Utica Herald._

FAMOUS WOMEN SERIES.

GEORGE SAND.

BY BERTHA THOMAS.

"Miss Thomas has accomplished a difficult task with as much good sense as good feeling. She presents the main facts of George Sand's life, extenuating nothing, and setting naught down in malice, but wisely leaving her readers to form their own conclusions. Everybody knows that it was not such a life as the women of England and America are accustomed to live, and as the worst of men are glad to have them live.... Whatever may be said against it, its result on George Sand was not what it would have been upon an English or American woman of genius."--_New York Mail and Express._

"This is a volume of the 'Famous Women Series,' which was begun so well with George Eliot and Emily Bronte. The book is a review and critical a.n.a.lysis of George Sand's life and work, by no means a detailed biography. Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin, the maiden, or Mme. Dudevant, the married woman, is forgotten in the renown of the pseudonym George Sand.

"Altogether, George Sand, with all her excesses and defects, is a representative woman, one of the names of the nineteenth century.

She was great among the greatest, the friend and compeer of the finest intellects, and Miss Thomas's essay will be a useful and agreeable introduction to a more extended study of her life and works."--_Knickerbocker._

"The biography of this famous woman, by Miss Thomas, is the only one in existence. Those who have awaited it with pleasurable antic.i.p.ation, but with some trepidation as to the treatment of the erratic side of her character, cannot fail to be pleased with the skill by which it is done. It is the best production on George Sand that has yet been published. The author modestly refers to it as a sketch, which it undoubtedly is, but a sketch that gives a just and discriminating a.n.a.lysis of George Sand's life, tastes, occupations, and of the motives and impulses which prompted her unconventional actions, that were misunderstood by a narrow public. The difficulties encountered by the writer in describing this remarkable character are shown in the first line of the opening chapter, which says, 'In naming George Sand we name something more exceptional than even a great genius.' That tells the whole story.

Misconstruction, condemnation, and isolation are the penalties enforced upon the great leaders in the realm of advanced thought, by the bigoted people of their time. The thinkers soar beyond the common herd, whose soul-wings are not strong enough to fly aloft to clearer atmospheres, and consequently they censure or ridicule what they are powerless to reach. George Sand, even to a greater extent than her contemporary, George Eliot, was a victim to ignorant social prejudices, but even the conservative world was forced to recognize the matchless genius of these two extraordinary women, each widely different in her character and method of thought and writing.... She has told much that is good which has been untold, and just what will interest the reader, and no more, in the same easy, entertaining style that characterizes all of these unpretentious biographies."--_Hartford Times._

Famous Women Series.

GEORGE ELIOT.

BY MATHILDE BLIND.

"Messrs. Roberts Brothers begin a series of Biographies of Famous Women with a life of George Eliot, by Mathilde Blind. The idea of the series is an excellent one, and the reputation of its publishers is a guarantee for its adequate execution. This book contains about three hundred pages in open type, and not only collects and condenses the main facts that are known in regard to the history of George Eliot, but supplies other material from personal research. It is agreeably written, and with a good idea of proportion in a memoir of its size. The critical study of its subject's works, which is made in the order of their appearance, is particularly well done. In fact, good taste and good judgment pervade the memoir throughout."--_Sat.u.r.day Evening Gazette._

"Miss Blind's little book is written with admirable good taste and judgment, and with notable self-restraint. It does not weary the reader with critical discursiveness, nor with attempts to search out high-flown meanings and recondite oracles in the plain 'yea'

and 'nay' of life. It is a graceful and unpretentious little biography, and tells all that need be told concerning one of the greatest writers of the time. It is a deeply interesting if not fascinating woman whom Miss Blind presents," says the New York _Tribune_.

"Miss Blind's little biographical study of George Eliot is written with sympathy and good taste, and is very welcome. It gives us a graphic if not elaborate sketch of the personality and development of the great novelist, is particularly full and authentic concerning her earlier years, tells enough of the leading motives in her work to give the general reader a lucid idea of the true drift and purpose of her art, and a.n.a.lyzes carefully her various writings, with no attempt at profound criticism or fine writing, but with appreciation, insight, and a clear grasp of those underlying psychological principles which are so closely interwoven in every production that came from her pen."--_Traveller._

"The lives of few great writers have attracted more curiosity and speculation than that of George Eliot. Had she only lived earlier in the century she might easily have become the centre of a mythos.

As it is, many of the anecdotes commonly repeated about her are made up largely of fable. It is, therefore, well, before it is too late, to reduce the true story of her career to the lowest terms, and this service has been well done by the author of the present volume."--_Philadelphia Press._

FAMOUS WOMEN SERIES.

MARY LAMB.