ABSTRACT
A whole volume of the Victorian Era Series is devoted to Charles Dickens; very rightly, for he was beyond all question one of the great forces of the period. And Mr Gissing proves himself the very man to grapple with this complex and disconcerting subject. Disconcerting, I say, because ofall writers that ever lived Dickens sets formal criticism, the criticism ofrule and plummet, most audaciously at defiance. He is like Sam Weller in the witness-box-there is no cornering him. He flouts our sober judgment at every turn, and makes us ashamed of the merest artistic common sense, as of an impertinent pedantry. Of such a writer-so astonishing a genius, so unequal and in some ways misguided an artist-it is very hard to treat without falling into excess, whether ofpraise or blame. Mr Gissing avoids both dangers, and without swerving from his allegiance to an artistic ideal more serious and
strenuous than Dickens ever conceived, shows that the keenest sense ofa great man's limitations is not inconsistent with the most ardent appreciation of his unique and beneficent genius.
