ABSTRACT
Happily, in a good novel it is the impression of the best part which remains, while the weaker pages fade away. Who remembers the loves -ofMadeline Bray (if: indeed, that was her name) and Nicholas Nickleby? but who forgets Mrs Nickleby or the Crummles family? The parts that remain of The Odd Women are the picture of the three sisters Madden, and that ofRhoda and Miss Barfoot, comrades in work, hope, and friendship. These parts of the book are better, truer, and, it may be fairly added, better written than anything which Mr Gissing had previously published; and to say that is not to say little.
