 | The thief in the night |  |
George Sand's Novels.
| MAUPRAT | $1.50 |
| ANTONIA | 1.50 |
| MONSIEUR SYLVESTRE | 1.50 |
| THE SNOW MAN | 1.50 |
| THE MILLER OF ANGIBAULT | 1.50 |
From the Cleveland Leader.
Miss Vaughan has shown herself to be perfectly adapted to the work she has undertaken.
We search in vain through the entire list of translations from the French,
published in this country and England, for a volume which more satisfactorily reveals
one's remembrance of it in the original than the one now under consideration. Antonia
is not one of the great works of its authoress, the best of whose fiction is to our mind
the most consummate romance that France has yet produced; but is by far the most
elaborate and perfect in its finish.... The scene is principally in Paris, the Paris of
Louis XVI., and the action occurs just prior to the French Revolution. The hero is
a poor unknown artist, the heroine a countess, beautiful and exalted in station, but,
withal, a woman of the purest type. The beautiful garden which encloses the home
of the heroine is exquisitely painted, and in those enchanted shadows there is portrayed
the birth and development of a love as passionate and pure as ever was pictured in
romance.... Uncle Antoine, the marplot of the story, is strongly and admirably
drawn; and the Countess and Julien Thierry are two of the most perfect lovers in any
literature. The tale derives its name from that of a rare and perfect flower, cultivated
by Uncle Antoine in the enchanted garden, and whose growth and blossoming are
woven with exquisite art into the development of the story.
John G. Saxe, in Albany Evening Journal.
Undoubtedly the woman who by her writings has exerted the widest, probably the
most potent, influence upon the men and women of her time, is she who, under the nom
de plume of “George Sand,” has given to the world in her own sparkling French
tongue, and, through translations, in almost every modern language which has a literature,
such powerful and fascinating works as “Mauprat,” “Antonia,” and a host of
other works, the very names of which suggest by their number a fertility and industry
almost as remarkable as the extraordinary genius which inspired them. For many
years no writer was so little understood, or rather, so thoroughly misunderstood, both
in England and America. Not unnaturally, the immorality, the flippancy, the persiflage,
of most contemporary novelists of France, were attributed to the writings of
Madame Dudevant by people who had read nothing, or only the earliest and most
objectionable of her novels. For a time, therefore, she was any thing but popular,
and presently fell into neglect. Novel readers who sought only for the sensational,
indifferent to the moral quality of their intellectual pabulum, were disappointed in
finding instruction and the noblest philosophy where they looked hopefully for pruriency
or romantic excitement; while the higher class of readers was warned away
by hearing, in endless repetition, the charge of eccentricity in her life, and dangerous
morality in her books. Even prejudice has commonly some foundation, and it is not
to be denied that both in her earlier life and literature there is much to reprehend
much, indeed, that she has lived herself to condemn, and, as far as might be, to counteract.
What all but a few failed to learn was the sincerity, the benevolence, the deep
philanthropy, of this wonderful woman, who, with such sad and disheartening experiences
of life, lost no faith in God or mankind, and who, with such fervor of language
and eloquence of diction as no French woman had ever before employed, still kept to
her work of trying to make the world happier and better by inculcating in the more
vraisemble and fascinating pictures the noblest lessons of hope, courage, purity, and
practical benevolence. The foregoing remarks were suggested by the excellent edition
of the best of the novels of George Sand, remarkably well translated into English,
which is now appearing from the press of Roberts Brothers, Boston. “Mauprat” and
“Antonia” have already appeared; and others, carefully selected, will presently follow.
We have just concluded the perusal of the latter, a charming love story, which we have
found no less attractive than “Mauprat;” and so commend it to the public.
ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston.
| The thief in the night | |