University of Virginia Library

Miss Braddon is not only the most popular, but
most deservedly so, of our present race of novel writers.
There is something peculiarly fresh and strong in all
her characters and groupings. Her plots are marvels
of complexity, and yet she so clearly elucidates them
that they are never unnaturally intricate.

Like a skillful story-teller, Miss Braddon interests
us from the very first sentence. Her characters are
never so idealized as to lose their naturalness. Her
scenes are vividly real, as though drawn with the pencil,
not the pen. In her personages we seem to meet
with persons whom we have known. Her heroines are
matchless creatures. Unlike many female writers she
is as great in depicting the grander passions as in displaying
the minor forces.

How admirably does this writer rise to the loftiest
and most violent passions that can sway or tear the
human heart. She has the wondrous gift of being
equally mistress of her subject, whether describing the
sweet interchange of lovers' vows beneath the silver
rays of the pale moon, or laying bear the fiercest passons
glared on by the blue lightning's vivid flashes.
Her stories are simply matchless.

It has fallen to the lot of very few of the most gifted
among modern writers to be so universally read and to
be so universally admired. Miss Braddon is one
among a thousand. Every story that she writes enhances
her already great fame. She is never dull.
Yet is she never extravagant. If her subject demands
a vehement style, her words and sentences leap forth
with vividness and strength; if incidents require gentler
portrayal, her language flows as soft as the gentle
Avon.

Miss Braddon's imagination fairly teems with rich
and rare plots, characters and descriptions. To much
of the close descriptive power of Dickens, she adds the
brilliancy of Disraeli. We can name no author who
unites so many great yet diversified qualities. But
over and above all is the extraordinary power which
she possesses of captivating and enchaining the attention.
Like the lad in the eastern story she has but to
rub her talismanic lamp, and we are borne away into
the realms of fancy—but of a fancy that seems only the
reality.

The wings of the writer's imagination appear tireless
as those of an eagle. No flagging—no loitering. Always,
if possible, improving. Her last seems ever her
best story. She has that uncommon gift of interesting
the least impressionable mind by her admirable powers
of narration. Each of her books are as separate and
distinct as the different stars that form a constellation,
yet are they united by a certain resemblance which prevents
our ever mistaking one of them for the production
of another writer.

Miss Braddon has a new and really sterling novel
in the list of new works. We are always anxious to
read any and every book from the fertile intellect of
this great writer. To praise her now is superfluous.
Her reputation has long had the zeal of critical approval.
Her “Factory Girl.” alone would have made
her famous. But when she adds to that such works
as “The Octoroon,” “The White Phantom,” “Oscar
Bertrand,” and a half dozen other books of equal
but diversified merit, she challenges and must win the
admiration of all critics, and the public as well.

Miss Braddon.—It matters little to the powerful
genius of this gifted women whether her scenes are
laid in “merry England” or mystical Germany—in
vine-clad Italy or dance-loving France. She is at once
at home wherever she selects “a local habitation” for
her characters. She never lets her garlands wither or
grow russet. She keeps them perpetually green and
fresh.