John Blackwood to GHL, Edinburgh, 7 July 1862
Title
John Blackwood to GHL, Edinburgh, 7 July 1862
Title
John Blackwood to GHL, Edinburgh, 7 July 1862
Sender
John Blackwood
Recipient
George Henry Lewes
Date(s)
- 1862-07-07
Place
Edinburgh
Letter Content
John Blackwood to GHL, Edinburgh, 7 July 1862
Text: Copy in Blackwood Letter Book. Hitherto unpublished.
Edinburgh July 7/62.
My Dear Lewes
I could not get Mr. Trollope's Tuscan Chronicle 91 read in London but I have now gone through it carefully and am sorry to say I cannot make use of it. The story is well and clearly told and there are some capital touches but it seems to me too much of a bald horrible chronicle in which none of the characters interest one, not even poor Catarina although she is almost the only one of the lot whose murder would affect one much. The Princess has no remembrance of past happiness destroyed by Catarina to give any one a vestige of sympathy with her in her fiendish revenge, and it is a wonder "Jacopo" did not wind up her "comedy" by murdering her. The story being true does not much matter to the reader unless perchance it had happened recently in Manchester and I think the weight of the infernal denoument he had selected prevents Mr. Trollope from extracting the interest and amusement from the minor characters which his knowledge of the period would have enabled him to give. I regret that I cannot express a more favourable opinion of anything written by Mr. Trollope as independantly of his literary reputation what I had heard of him from you both and also from others very much disposed me to enter into correspondence with him.
I intended to have spoken to you when I called about the review of the Miserables 92 but you were poorly and I could not get to Blandford Square again at the time that suited Mrs. Lewes and you in the afternoon. The passages you quote from Victor Hugo in the beginning of the paper gave me such a turn against him that I felt indisposed for any review of him. Claude Frollo's complaissance to the charms of Esmeralda is so supremely disgusting that I think I would at all events suppress it. The paper is a good one but I do not much fancy it as
Victor Hugo's theories inspire me with a stronger feeling of disgust than you express. I may however like it better at a second reading and in type. I was rather glad to see that Notre Dame did not interest Goethe as I am in this case in the same boat with that great chief.
I hope that you are better and that Mrs. Lewes is well and getting on happily with her work.
Always Yours Truly
John Blackwood.
P.S. I send Mr. Trollope's M.S. by book post.
Text: Copy in Blackwood Letter Book. Hitherto unpublished.
Edinburgh July 7/62.
My Dear Lewes
I could not get Mr. Trollope's Tuscan Chronicle 91 read in London but I have now gone through it carefully and am sorry to say I cannot make use of it. The story is well and clearly told and there are some capital touches but it seems to me too much of a bald horrible chronicle in which none of the characters interest one, not even poor Catarina although she is almost the only one of the lot whose murder would affect one much. The Princess has no remembrance of past happiness destroyed by Catarina to give any one a vestige of sympathy with her in her fiendish revenge, and it is a wonder "Jacopo" did not wind up her "comedy" by murdering her. The story being true does not much matter to the reader unless perchance it had happened recently in Manchester and I think the weight of the infernal denoument he had selected prevents Mr. Trollope from extracting the interest and amusement from the minor characters which his knowledge of the period would have enabled him to give. I regret that I cannot express a more favourable opinion of anything written by Mr. Trollope as independantly of his literary reputation what I had heard of him from you both and also from others very much disposed me to enter into correspondence with him.
I intended to have spoken to you when I called about the review of the Miserables 92 but you were poorly and I could not get to Blandford Square again at the time that suited Mrs. Lewes and you in the afternoon. The passages you quote from Victor Hugo in the beginning of the paper gave me such a turn against him that I felt indisposed for any review of him. Claude Frollo's complaissance to the charms of Esmeralda is so supremely disgusting that I think I would at all events suppress it. The paper is a good one but I do not much fancy it as
Victor Hugo's theories inspire me with a stronger feeling of disgust than you express. I may however like it better at a second reading and in type. I was rather glad to see that Notre Dame did not interest Goethe as I am in this case in the same boat with that great chief.
I hope that you are better and that Mrs. Lewes is well and getting on happily with her work.
Always Yours Truly
John Blackwood.
P.S. I send Mr. Trollope's M.S. by book post.
Signature
John Blackwood.
Citation
John Blackwood, John Blackwood to GHL, Edinburgh, 7 July 1862, Complete George Eliot Letters(2026), George Eliot Archive, edited by Beverley Park Rilett. https://GeorgeEliotArchive.org, Accessed September 7, 2026. https://georgeeliotarchive.org/items/show/95426