The Sun.
London, England, 1863-12-21 00:00:00

THE CRIMINAL NOVEL,

The principle that holds good political economy holds
equ:ly good in lit 3raturc—that the demand creates the sup-
ply. The author, therefore—or more frequently the
authoress—of the criminal nuvel is perhaps not prqwerable
for more then half the evil that springs from the perform-

ance. He knows what his r:adeu require, and supplies
them ss ith the article, which may be said, in a comprehen-
sive sense, to be made to order. Almost eve:), one professes
to condemn the criminal novel as unfit for general perusal,
though for his or her own private reading it is supposed to
be innoxious. "It does me no harm," thinks the mature
matron, "though it is certainly unfit to be placed in the
hands of young rersons." But what the mamma reads the
daugh*.4r also will read, so that the romantic poison, if
poison it be, finds its way all through the household, as well
_ .

as into the mistress's boudoir ; for Miss t3llB her maid, who
tells the cook—rid all pant over the forbidden page by

The novelist would find no market, who should present
the supporters of circulating libraries with a fiction in
three volumes not seasoned with the proper ingredients.
What is wcntcd is excitement, no matter how produced.
Life is becoming tame; the current of English society—on
the striace, at least—runs smoothly, and if it were not for
the activity of burglars and pickpockets, our sympathies
would actually stagnate. Occasionally a murderer comes
to our relief, and the whole British public thrills with a
pleasing horror. While the criminal is undetected, every-
Lody appears on the look-out. If we enter a tavern or a
r lffee-house, if we are boxed up in an omnibus or in a rail-
way ca-riage, we may elbow him there, with his garrotting
cord or his clasped knife in his pocket: At the breakfast
table, nothing else is talked of. If justice takes its due
course, end avenges the shedding of innocent blo td, a
momentary she ^k is felt by the whole nation, aster which
the sensation dies gradually away, leaving the popular
mind, in a state of eager craa:ng for another. To fill
up the interval, the ctim'nal novelist offers his services,
which are generally quite in harmony with the inci-
dents of our social experience. Nothing in fiction "takes"
like a wel-plentrd murder; the reader being 'et

into the sccrct, bccomes a sort of acclmplice before the fact
—sees the victim lcd towards the wood, the ruin, or the
pool; hears the st-b, the lush of blood, or the plunge of the
colds() t7n...0 the water. If the de: i be prpetrat:i for money
it still creates a powerarl tw:tt3l.ng of the Loves; but if

for revenge, or through the jealousy of love, the reader al-
most Lcomes one with the heroic rssassin, and dreads his
detection, rs if he or she were to suffer with him. By reflec-
tive and artistic shill, the suspense is protractel through
volume a:, r volume, ;th hair-bre:A.oi escap altcrnat-
ing wi h moments of irr,quillity and' remorse, or with
generous t aciifircs. or acts of dating designed to awaken
admiration in female bosoms; until at length, fa the corn-
plie .440 n of incidents, the chuos cf tentiments and motives,
the suec-,e.ion of enjoyments end sufferings, or the pressure
upon the essa,:sin of wrongs unconnected with his guilt,
which, on the mind of Vie reader, operate like expiations,
it become matter of doubt whether we ought to desire escape
or punishment.
Our feelings are, however, most commonly interested in
the fate of some gentle sinner, who early in life makes a
mistake which colours her destiny, and qualifies her to be-
come the heroine of a criminal navel. This mistake is gene-
tally a marriage, contracted through rashness, through

passion, through vanity, through pique, through craving
for opulence, with an individual whom she does not love.
In real life no one, while sowing this fatal sececcan by any
exert:on of sagacity foresee what fruit ic will bear. We
need not apply any epithet to the womrn who takes the
step. She feels her propel appellation stamped upon her
heart in characters of fire, rid shudders and sickens as
often in secret Ehe reads over the agonising inscription.
Some who have rdvanced thus far in the path of iniquity

stop shoat thue, and expiate, by a life of wretchedness, the
eror of their youth. With these the novelist has nothing
tl do. To figure in fiction, a woman must efface her first
uffence by a Eicand,—by elopement, by adrltary, by

bigamy, or at times even by assassination. Of course
the novelist does nut defend these acts of his

heroine; does not say in so many welds that what

she does is right ; ho only clothes her with all sorts of vir-
tues and graces, except one ; gives her taste, fancy, kindness
to equals, compassion for inferiors, and, above all. beauty,

accomparied by every conceivable fascination. Sometimes,
indeci, by way of variety, like Aurora Floyd, she tak 1
to ►he horsewhip, or, with her own fair hands, like Lady

Audley, pushes en intrusive ht ;band down a well, or like
Ellen Middleton as innocent young girl int') a liver; but
then it is only in cell-defence, end to cut the Gordian 1-sot
of difficulties, which seem otherwise insur mountable.
As for the readers, it may be said that they will tolerate

anything provided it be suilciently disguised, or even if the
novelist pretend that it is disguised. We all know that there
is no sophistry like that of the heart, which nearly always

. _
possesses the rower to excuse what it lows. Accordingly,
the most grave and virtuous ladirs are generally able to de-
fend their passions for pi urient descriptions, which they
maintain are not only harmless, but instructive, because they
afford a pictr,'s of life, such as it is. They might be told, if
it were worth while, Prat in this great scheme of things,

called life, there are many nooks and recesses into which
the eye of a chaste woman should not pry. It is cot Lain,
however, that the nearer approach made by novelists to
such nooks and la ',...saes, the greater is the delight of their
rer 7evs, who hang fascinated over those gulfs of sin which
they ere emulated thus to enter, at least in imagination.
If qurstionc 1 on this point, they will take refuge in affected
bluntnes: of perception, they do not, they say, understand
what em:ein prasages me :n, nor en they quite discern
the th:ft of insinuations which, nevertheless, heighten the
interest thcf,take in the story. It most confessed that
there are men, as well as women, tea readily interested by
the-e fenole novelists who tread habitually on the verge of
forbidden wornd, and undertake to unveil the mysteries of
the feminine nato.e. The administration of the novel-
reading public is no longer excited by apt repr:-.:entations
of character, end by a series of drrmatic incidents and
situations. What is now sought is a disclosure of the
sablle notions rid fluctuations of the female heart.
These r-e, it way be adnaiLted, an important subject of
study. But in the case before us, it is not the general
system of sentiments, emotions, passions, that are
anatomise I end depicted, but only such as are closely
allied w:th vice end crime. A woman with a pure heart
and unsoiled name creates no interest whatever in the
reader, unless through some probable combination of events
she is threatened with the loss of what makes her estimable.
No reader feels much solicituJe about tracing the arduous
procc3s by which the soul sometimes works off its stains
and pollutions, and emerges from darkness into light. If
such an aim were kept in view by the writers of fiction,
they would be accused of converting a novel into a rotor-
mato' y. Wns.t the readers prefer to Boat over is the much
sadder proe as by which innocence is undermined; by
which ail the fine qualiL:es of mind and heart are blig,ht;:d;
by which features once soft end lovely are render::: hard ;
by which the eye that once drooped with modesty is in-
vested a ith a confident s'are in one word, by which beauty
itself is made lo ;thsome through its association with vain
No doubt, the treatment of such a theme way
with the loiliest purpose which can regulate
tdilevelopment
b 3 reeerenations
of literature. Tragedy in its mast sublimneit
hag
waded
is based on crime. But the mind, when
v:tiOedeterioration, of
through its horrors, is conscious
no inroad of effeminacy, of no lination to swerve from
the right path to the wrong. 'nit on the contrary,
nerved cud strengthened tc virtue. No ingenioUs reader