Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1919 edition. Excerpt: ... IX. SOME OF THE LATER ENGLISHMEN The Lesson of Laurence Sterne--The France of Kipling's "The Light That Failed"--The Trail of Stevenson--"R. L. S." in Paris, Fontainebleau, and Grez--Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes and Brigadier Gerard--" The Refugees"--Leonard Merrick's Tricotrin and His Haunts--The Paris of Arnold Bennett--The Writing of "The Old Wives' Tale"--W. J. Locke's "The Beloved Vagabond" and "Septimus"--Mr. Locke on His Own Characters. SINCE Laurence Sterne made the discovery that "they order this matter better in France," and wrote the "Sentimental Journey," English men of letters of all conditions and degrees of talent have been turning to the near-by land for direct inspiration and for occasional background. There is a Sir Walter Scott France in the pages of "Quentin Durward." The conventional beginning of a novel by G. P. R. James pictured two horsemen riding along a river bank, and in most cases the river bore a Gallic name. Whatever the political sympathies of Disraeli may have been, as a writer of fiction he invariably endowed his characters with a sympathetic appreciation of French art, literature, wines, and sauces. To mention only one of the novels of Bulwer-Lytton, there was the tale bearing the title: "The Parisians." Another Lytton wrote "Aux Italiens," beginning with the somewhat hackneyed lines "In Paris it was, at the Opera there." Essentially French was the genius of George Meredith. The story of Dickens and Thackeray in Paris and the French scenes and characters in their books has already been told, and the story of George Du Maurier and the city by the Seine that was so charmingly reflected in the pages of "Trilby," "Peter Ibbetson," and "The Martian." What of the younger men--the men of today or of the recent...