ABSTRACT
Among the reviewers of Our Mutual Friend was the young Henry James, who took a strong di~like to Dickens's novel and said so in no uncertain terms. James's criticism seems to me quite mistaken but of considerable interest, because it puts very forcefully the case of all those who, .like George Eliot and G. H. Lewes in the last century and critics too numerous to mention in this, have expressed deep reservations about Dickens's art. And without wanting to get myself entangled in the wrong sort of discussion here, it seems proper to try and end my book by taking up the issues that such criticism raises and attempting to answer them.
