ABSTRACT

CAZAMIAN’s work, admirably translated, and with a useful foreword by the translator, still remains a standard text for this subject, although its optimism about human progress and its French origin give it a detached and outdated air. Dickens is correctly shown as moving away from attacks on specific abuses in the early novels to denouncements of general malaise as reflected in the later greater works, and, again correctly, this move is shown to be against the trend set by other novelists like Benjamin Disraeli, Charles Kingsley, and Elizabeth Gaskell. The importance given to Kingsley as artist and social reformer may seem surprising since, apart from a few rather lurid biographies, he has received little critical attention recently. On the other hand Cazamian’s theoretical approach and his apparently effortless comprehension of historical and philosophical trends gives this work a surprisingly modern air.