Publisher's Synopsis
Mr. Andrew Lang is delightfully severe on those who 'cannot read Dickens, ' but in truth it is only by accident that he is not himself of that unhappy persuasion. For Dickens the humourist he has a most uncompromising enthusiasm; for Dickens the artist in drama and romance he has as little sympathy as the most practical. Of the prose of David Copperfield and Our Mutual Friend, the Tale of Two Cities and The Mystery of Edwin Drood, he disdains to speak. He is almost fierce (for him) in his denunciation of Little Nell and Paul Dombey; he protests that Monks and Ralph Nickleby are 'too steep, ' as indeed they are. But of Bradley Headstone and Sydney Carton he says not a word; while of Martin Chuzzlewit-but here he shall speak for himself, the italics being a present to him. 'I have read in that book a score of times, ' says he; 'I never see it but I revel in it-in Pecksniff and Mrs. Gamp and the Americans. But what the plot is all about, what Jonas did, what Montague Tigg had to make in the matter, what all the pictures with plenty of shading illustrate, I have never been able to comprehend.'
