ABSTRACT
Antonina, the young author’s first significant production, though characterized by the kind of boldness which often overshoots the mark, and bedecked with those affectations of style which fall so readily from the pen of the professional author, was nonetheless one of the outstanding books of its season. For all its faults, nothing in it is merely commonplace. The composition is unsatisfactory, but the weakness of the overall design is offset by the handling of the individual elements. The priest of the false gods, who in France would have the grave weakness of too vividly recalling the well-known character of Quasimodo, the terrible bell-ringer in Notre-Dame de Paris, doubtless had for many English readers a certain merit of novelty. The classical tastes of many others were flattered by the accuracy with which the historical portions of the story are presented. The requirements of the most prudish readers were satisfied by the immaculate purity of the heroine…. The favourable treatment accorded to this first book by the critics might have been the ruin of the author who was its happy recipient: he might well have followed a false trail and have prepared for himself some rude shocks. If one concedes that this kind of fiction is capable of satisfying the demands of contemporary taste, it must be recognized that success in this vein requires more maturity than Mr Wilkie Collins had yet displayed, as well as less preoccupation with a purely dramatic interest….
