The Sun.
London, England, 1867-12-04 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

New Editions of Famous Novels.
THE " CHARLES DICKENS" EDITION Of 4i Oliver
Twist," "Dombey and Son,,, and The old
Curiosity Shop." Chapman and Hall.
As the third, fourth, and fifth instalments of the
New Edition of Charles Dickens's works— begun 3
few months since by the reissue of " The Pickwick
Papers," and followed a month later by the
publication in a co.npauion volume cf martin
Chuzzlewit" —we have now placed before 1130
to range side by side with those two celebrated
fictions upon the same bookshelf, three other 3
of the famous stories of the once mysterious
Boz. Each of these three other stories attesting in
a remarkable manner the extraordinary creative
power with which their writer has been gifted as 3
delineator of character. In illustration of which it
is only necessary to take them one by one into on'
sideration—it hardly matters how casually. There
is " Oliver Twist," for example, thanks to wh°ln'
or rather to which (speaking of it simply as a book)
we have, years ago, made the acquaintance, ainuag
others, and that very intimately indeed, of gr'
Bumble (the very archetype or model-exemplar of
Beadledom), of Bill Sykes, of. Fagin, of Neal'
of Charley Bates, of Noah Claypole, of Charlotte,
of the Artful Dodger, and of little Oliver himself
Again—there is " I)ornbey and Son," a book ass°.
ciated with how many a tender and tearful recol-
lection and with how much hearty laughter, peopled
as it is among others by Little Paul and his sister
Florence, by Major Bagstock, and Captain Cuttle'
and Cousin Phoenix, and Mrs. Pipchin, and Susan
Nipper, and Mr. Toots, and Dr. Blimber, and gr'
Feeder, and Miss I'ox, and the Toodles
and Mr. Carker, and Mr. Dombey, and Edith, and
Mrs. Skewton, and all the rest of them! Lastly'
there is the " The Old Curiosity Shop," with its
many wonderful creations, whimsical, beautiful, of
grotesque—creations as widely contrasting as Little
Nell and Quilp--comprising, among their number,
Sampson and Sally Brass, Kit; and Jacob, and the
baby, and Mrs. Nubbles, Barbara and Whisker, the
Garlands, the Single Gentleman, Short and
Codlin, Mrs. Jarley, the poor Schoolmaster,
Toni Scott, Dick Swiveller, and the
Marchioness ! The mere enumeration of those
old familiar names, affords a notion of the,
astonishing wealth of imaginative power squandered
upon the pages of these wonderful books•—boob
accessible now to the thriftiest purchasers, 133 b•
lished, as they are, in so many forms and at ee
many prices, from the original (guinea) edition to
the Library (seven and sixpenny) edition, to the
double columned popular edition ,after wards modified
in form and yet further reduced in price, as the cheap
edition ; until these books that we have all so often
laughed and cried over to our heart's content, are 11°
being issued from the Press, at last, in this handie.st
of all the English Editions yet out, the 6'
Dickens" Edition, as it is called, in other words 07,
autograph edition of the writings of Charles Dickens'
Each work complete in one volume, the letter-prel
adorned with eight of the original illustrations, an
the book itself purchasable, on the average for n 0
More formidable sum than three and sixpence'

Sir Brooke Fossbrooke. By Charles Lever. l'resir,
Edition in One Volume. Win. Blackwood all"
Sons.
It is the distinguishing merit of Charles Lever
(recently dubbed by a slashing and merciless sate.
rist calling his satire "Flaying Alive," the Iris'
cc Smollett of our age")--it is Charles Lever's distin-
guishing excellence that, as a writer of fiction, his style,
in the best among his later works, is a wonderful inn'
provement upon the harum scarum dash and care-
lessness manifest in the composition of his earlier
stories, without these later works of his evideneil4'
any falling off whwever in the effervescent visacit9
so delightful iu such records of fun and frolic as °cis-a
relating the adventures of Charles O'Malley 313
Harry Lorrequer. Ile, at any rate, has not written
himself out. Industrious though he has been
through all these years during will°it
he has catered so successfully for our amuse,:
meat he has still retained those aboundin°
animal spirits, that perennial freshness, that /a°-
haustible flow of anecdote and repartee, which'
coupled with a capacity for the delineation in gl°''"
ing colours of whimsical characters like Mickel,
Free and Carney Delaney, better known as Cross
Corney, have made his various works, no matter
whether those of his earlier, those of his middle, °r
those of his later style, repertories of exhilarating
and laughter-moving literature. Here, for example'
in one of the very last as it is also one of the very
best of his humorous narratives, in this story °,
,4 sir Brooke Forsbrooke," we have the author 0:
" Charles O'Malley," of " Harry Lorrequer," °lt
" Tom Burke," of " Jack Hinton," we have °ll
new Laughing Philosopher (a better one /
his way than Heraclitus ever could h3,vB
been) " Cornelius O'Dowd " we have the
droll historian of " The Dodi Family," th
celebrant of the " Barringtons" the annalist °f
"The Knight of Gwyune," we have Charles Le°
in a word, still at his best and happiest, as witilesro
the whole tale of Sir Brooke Fossbrooke, but 111°,,e
especially as witness his inimitable portraiture is t 4;
course of it of the testy and vain-glorious Chief Bar°,.:
Sir William Lendrick. As fine a character, that is'
the character of the Lord Chief Baron Lendrick''
110
as any that Charles Lever has ever drawn since
began his career as a novelist. And, if only for tiller
sake of Sir William Lendrick, the admirers of °to
author—now more numerous than ever—are •
be congratulated on the re-issue of the work .0
the form of this beautiful and compact edie,
of it—an edition portable enough for the v".° 0
and yet handsome enough for the booksliejle
of any library.

Alec Forbes, of Boll:glen. By George Macdeuajw
New Edition, in one volume. Hurst and Blacket,',l
As another volume of the Messrs. Hurst 3'o
Blackett's excellent "Standard Library" we have h,!ars
one of the ablest productions of a true man of glo a
—George Macdonald, Poet and Novelist. If be, bbile
never written anything but " Alec Forbes,
would be remembered because of that one 13`9°:
nay, we will even say, because of one character, be
cause of one creation, iu it. Those who have read to
work will understand at once that ive ,
alluded to old Mr. Cupples —a soddened dr3o
drinker, only comparable in fiction (at the
when he is first introduced to the reader's Iletleritio
to the Naughty Child in " Our Mutual Frie.l3lo
that miserably degraded old drunkard who s 8 of
often and so vainly taken to task, with the Nirafi-iieo
a delicate little finger and the shake of a fair 0.00
head, by the Person of the House. How f°l. lifts
sake of another—his pupil—Old Mr. CuPPlei ter
himself. at last, by a wondrous effort of moralesue
rumation, out of his hitherto seemingly hopeots
gradation, is one among the most affecting h'e.i i$
related in the whole range of modern fiction,. it 0-
delineation worthy of a God-fearing, man-lovlio-
ture like that of our poet-novelist George
donald.

Isieft
The Mil on the I loss. By George Eliot.
-13
d
Edition in One Volume. Wm. Blackwood
Sons. a, 511
Next to her peerless "Adam Bade," o.lll°l'o'
the works of George Eliot, there stands fern:' and
cording to our view at least, as second in rag
general excellence—" The Mill on the 1 is
In it, if we have not (what was hard ' 00'
preaansiootni tcorebiteioillooktoedtifioart) °obi°
of the incotulnaily
Mrs. Poyser, we have at any rate that wonier 0 of
life-like and humoristically pourtrayed gr,°tu'i.93
sisters, the Dodsons--Mrs. Glegg, Mcs. ratie",
iii i;pl
Mrs. Tulliver. Besides whom, have we "1'
and Maggie, other characters especially werAt'Sr•
note, to say nothing of Mr. Tulliver, flu 511
Glegg, and Bob Jakius, and Mrs. MOi, 51:11 tbo
the rest of them. As might be said also °,3 Way
general effect of " Adam Bede" as a uov'll,,, 18:.,0 the
say not the less distinctly of "Die qi„.
Floss," that it has about it the incongru"stori
separable from the perusal of a humorous 0303
with a tragic close to it. Despite ths,,t.xcioa
inerradicable incongruity, peculiar alike both diose
Bede" and " The Mill on the Floss " -5 the
masterly fictions have taken a lasting 'bold in:1;0001
popular imagination. Satisfied of which, we latitel;
but feel certain that this charming one-v,„,°e,
edition of each will be welcomed far and wi",
will tend inconsirierable degree to sPrNloclsol-1
fame,. here of Mrs. Poyser, these of the toicl
Sisters, now of Hefty and Dinah, now. of 'lv
Maggie Tulliver,