ABSTRACT
There are three kinds of works of fiction, each with strongly marked characteristics-the first, in which acknowledged fidelity to nature is a marked feature; as examples we may instance the earlier works of Dickens, The Caxtons of Bulwer, and Adam Bede. The second, in which there is an evident element of exaggeration, treated with more or less artistic merit, such as the later works of Dickens, Jane Eyre, John Halifax, and the Woman in White. In the third, nature is entirely disregarded, and the author contents himself with repeating old forms of melodramatic narrative.
