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1Author:  Flint Timothy 1780-1840Add
 Title:  The life and adventures of Arthur Clenning, in two volumes  
 Published:  1997 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: Having obtained the ensuing adventures for publication, as the reader will see, a circumstance, which I am about to relate, gave me serious alarm, lest this volume should be classed with the common novels and made up stories of the day. It would give me pain to have it lose the little interest which might appertain to it, as a recital of plain and simple matters of fact. My apprehension that such might be its fate, was excited by hearing, the very evening after I had completed this compilation from the notes of Mr. Clenning, a critical dialogue between two old, spectacled, female, novel-reading, tea-drinking cronies, as they discussed the merits of a recently published novel over their evening tea. I seemed to them to be absorbed in reading the newspapers; but in truth my ears drank every word. The incidents of the story upon which they sat in judgment, were as nearly like this biography of mine as fiction may approach to fact. I considered their opinions a kind of forestalling of my doom. The sprites of the lower country did not pitchfork the fictitious Don Quixotte with more hearty good will to the burning depths, as the real Don Quixotte related their management, than did these excellent old ladies dispose of this book. “The wretch!” said the first; “he has removed the landmarks between history and fable.” “The fool!” said the other; “he does not know how to keep up the appearance of probability.” “My husband inquired on the spot,” said the first, “and the people had never even heard of such a man.” “The block-head!” said the second; “he should have laid the scene just four hundred years back.” “He caricatures nature horribly,” said the first. “He is wholly deficient in art and polish,” said the second. “It is a poor affair from the beginning,” said the first. “The author is only fit to write for the newspapers,” said the second. “He has been an exact and humble copyist of Sir Walter Scott, though he is just a thousand leagues behind him,” said the first. “He is nine hundred miles behind Mr. Cooper, dear man,” said the second.
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