The Sun.
London, England, 1861-11-15 00:00:00

ILLUSTRATED.

Already, four of the most celebrated and popular
fictions of our great novelist have made their ap-
pearance in this magnificent edition of his writings.
Among all the various editions yet published this
is incomparably the very best. The original edi-
tions must always, of course, if but for old asso-
ciation's sake, remain to the last especial favou-
rites with us ! Those ever-memorable guinea
editions, issued in monthly shilling numbers, and
only bound into substantial volumes upon their
completion. Who has not a kindness for them ?
a genuine affection even for the mere remembrance
of those two green leaves put forth month after
month—each serial in its turn weaving a garland
for the Great Humorist, more delightful, and ver-
dant, and perennial than all the bay-wreaths that
were ever babbled about or hankered after by the
old poets ? If it were possible to have these works
printed in gold upon vellum by Delarue, and illu-
minated by the gorgeous brush of Owen Jones,
and bound by Hayday in pink morocco, glorified
by a web-work of gilt tooling in arabesques—we
can't help thinking we should still have a side-
long preference somehow for the old type and the
old illustrations ! Hawever—better than all the
morocco, and vellum and gilding in the world (of
letters), • here, in this noble Library Edition of
Charles Dickens (Illustrated) is really and truly
one of those tte plus ultra editions of a great author
that leave one absolutely nothing in reason to de-
sire for it in the way of improvement. Excellent
paper, admirable type, and—as a pleasant reminis-
cence of the old green-leaved numbers the
original illustrations.

As we have said, Four of the most remarkable of
these world-famous fictions have already been com-
pleted since this last and best re-issue of Mr. Dickens'
writings began some nine months ago—volume by
volume appearing since then punctually with the
magazines. Pickwick is here—leading off, as it has
in every way a right to do, all the various and ini-
mitable works of our incomparable Boz. Nwholas
Nickleby comes immediately afterwards. Martin
Chuzzlewit is then, like the rest of them, laid before
us, complete in two volumes. Here also, ranged
side by side with its companions, may be recog-
nised The Old Curiosity Shop. Eight handsome
volumes altogether comprize within them these
four masterpieces—the second volume of the " Old
Curiosity Shop," a work not of course, it will be
remembered, of the same length with its predeces-
sors, being very agreeably eked out by what are
simply entitled, in the table of contents, " Re-
printed Pieces," namely, some one- and-thirty papers
of a miscellaneous character, selected from Mr.
Dickens' anonymous but unmistakeable contribu-

tions to his own two weekly periodicals.
It has often occurred to us that, far more vividly
than any analysis could possibly do, a simple enume-
ration of the dramatis persona peopling the fictions
of a great master in Imaginative Literature, would
account for the potency of his fame and for the diffu-
sion of his popularity. The reasonableness of this
impression might readily enough be evidenced by
the selection of any work of this character of esta-
blished reputation, from the first novel that was
ever written, or at any rate that has been preserved
for us from the old classic times, meaning
The Golden Ass of Apuleius, down, let us
say, to the last and not by any means the
least admirable Great _Expectations. We
might illustrate our meaning again very readily
from the picturesque narratives of Le Sage or of
Boccaccio. We might give as an excellent "case
in point" the epitome of the imaginary creatures
whose lives and deaths constitute the interest of any
one of the famous stories related, let us say, by
Walter Scott or by Henry Fielding. Bat the
notion here put forth could not, by any possibility
whatever, secure to itself a more admirable oppor-
tunity for its realisation, than by our availing our-
selves of the very instance now immediately under
our notice.

Of all the World's Novelists, Charles Dickens
is one of the very first and foremost. Here is an
imaginative writer gifted with the very rarest
original genius. A genius that for years and years
past has demonstrated its perfect mastery over our
tears and our laughter. No author has ever during
his own life enjoyed so wide a popularity. No
writer has ever had so many readers among his
contemporaries. His Romance, more than any other
romancist's that we wet of, has taken to itself the
substance of Reality. He is the great Realistic
Writer of his age. In the minuteness of his touch
he is the Pre•Raphaelite of the Pen—only thatunlike
the Pre-Raphaelites of the Pencil he has that exqui-
site tact, and taste, and instinctive sense of the to
kalon that (with all his wonderful appreciation of
the grotesque) his preference ever (whenever the
choice hangs trembling in the balance) decides in
favour of the True and the Beautiful. Here in
Charles Dickens iu fact is an imaginative writer
whose books have won for themselves and their
author a popularity unsurpassed either in depth or
in diffusion, in the hold it has gained upon each
individual reader's heart, and in its wide
and ample distribution among all ranks and classes
of the general multitude. The characters, the
thoughts, the merest quips and cranks, the casual
whims and oddities of this famous writer have now

—increasingly during this last quarter of a century
—though he himself is as yet but in the prime of
his manhood—been, so to speak, permeating his
age, until many of them,it is not extravagant to say
it, have long since come to be part and parcel of the
language. It cannot, therefore, but be matter of
interest, to any thoughtful observer, to obtain, by any
reasonable means that may be suggested, a vivid
notion (through one or two rapid retrospective
glances) of one of the sources of this amazing in-
fluence, of one of the secrets of this immense popu-
larity. And no readier means occurs to us—to-
wards this end—than the very, simple and easily
appreciable one we have but just now indicated.
Namely, by rapidly enumerating the extraordinary
diversity of original creations peopling one or other
of his delightful masterpieces. Giving, that is, the
dramatis persona of one fiction after another. For
example there is—PicKwicK—where, among a
crowd of other whimsical personages, we meet with
the following exquisitely humorous characters :
Mr. Pickwick himself—that " angel in tights !"
Mr. Tupman—the "too suceptible Tupman."
Mr. Snodgrass—the poetic Snodgrass.
Mr. Winkle—the type of all Cockney Sportsmen.
Old Weller—the model Stage Coachman.
Sam Weller—the paragon of Footmen.
Old Wardle—the Jovial Country Gentleman.
Alfred Jingle—the eccentric scamp.
Job Trotter—his humble canting accomplice.
Mr. Perker—the dapper little attorney.
All‘,AAMrs.rr:s...3BsLßtoeieanbordel—h
Allen—hisslai Sawyer—the
buxom lodginghouse-keeper.
t
Hunter—what
namtgeehdneiicraall nameinsttuimdindicates.
ggins—the redLosed man.
Sergeants,l,loagsettehreßr
awßreh utzuf
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wandtahr
swarm
Fo
ofua h
bt boßit no.ye
r.
Mrs. Cluppins and Mrs. Sanders.
Messrs. Mivins and Smangle.
motley and ever
laughter-movingl,hen, ag a
again,
b epersonages.
lection the wonderful
throng of
himself—the
inumdms eo
lr
fc—uastnhcder
adventureseaebtxeuosertfee s peopling the record
excepting
ne
all
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field.
of
c theo
Nicholasp p lifee heroes—savingr
id
Ralph Nickleby—the usurer.
Squeers—the Yorkshire schoolmaster.
Wackford—his son, that enfant terrible!
John Brodie—the good-humoured Yorkshireman.
'Tilda Price—afterwards buxom Mistress Brodie.
Miss Squeers and her incomparable mother.
Newman Noggs—the decayed gentleman.
Smike—the gentle half-witted drudge.
Charles and Ned—those glorious BrothergsoCohdeeorlyd--
ble.
eliotftleaminiature-
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Miss
sa old-
fashioned
miniature-
painter.
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eidenvwLyoalt edtrhi tlae tr a. rc h
kind-heartedt y p
the atriman pidgeon.
Mr. Man
Fredericktalini andr
i 11sloapdhatte M apn n.i
L
Hawk—his own surname, to aT.
and Pluck—tuft-hunters and toad-
Mrs. Nickleby—who as a humorous character is
M Sir
eesaMulberry
toad-
eaters
exPiketr
extraordinary.
only to be paralleled in ezcollence, anion 411 our