The Professor (1857, Smith, Elder & Co.)/Volume 2/Uniform Edition of the Works of Currer Bell.
Uniform Edition
of the
Works of Currer Bell,
Author of "Jane Eyre," etc.
1.
Jane Eyre. By Currer Bell.
In One Volume. Tenth Thousand.
"'Jane Eyre' is a remarkable production. Freshness and originality, truth and passion, singular felicity in the description of natural scenery and in the analysation of human thought, enable this tale to stand boldly out from the mass, and to assume its own place in the bright field of romantic literature."—Times.
"'Jane Eyre' is a book of decided power. The thoughts are true, sound, and original; and the style is resolute, straightforward, and to the purpose. The object and moral of the work are excellent. As an analysis of a single mind, as an elucidation of its progress from childhood to full age, it may claim comparison with any work of the same species."—Examiner.
"A very pathetic tale; very singular, and so like truth that it is difficult to avoid believing that much of the characters and incidents are taken from life. It is an episode in this work-a-day world, most interesting, and touched at once with a daring and delicate hand. The execution of the painting is as perfect as the conception. It is a book for the enjoyment of a feeling heart and vigorous understanding."—Blackwood's Magazine.
"For many years there has been no work of such power, piquancy, and originality. Its very faults are on the side of vigour, and its beauties are all original. From out the depths of a sorrowing experience here is a voice speaking to the experience of thousands. It is a book of singular fascination."—Edinburgh Review.
"Almost all that we require in a novelist the writer has; perception of character and power of delineating it; picturesqueness, passion, and knowledge of life. Reality—deep, significant reality—is the characteristic of this book."—Eraser's Magazine.
2.
Shirley. By Currer Bell.
A New Edition, in One Volume.
"The peculiar power which was so greatly admired in 'Jane Eyre' is not absent from this book. It possesses deep interest, and an irresistible grasp of reality. There is a vividness and distinctness of conception in it quite marvellous. The power of graphic delineation and expression is intense. There are scenes which, for strength and delicacy of emotion, are not transcended in the range of English fiction."—Examiner.
"'Shirley' is an admirable book; totally free from cant, affectation, or conventional tinsel of any kind; genuine English in the independence and uprightness of the tone of thought, in the purity of heart and feeling which pervade it; genuine English in the masculine vigour or rough originality of its conception of character; and genuine English in style and diction. It is a tale of passion and character rather than of incident; and, thus considered, it is a veritable triumph of psychology."—Morning Chronicle.
"The same piercing and loving eye, and the same bold and poetic imagery, are exhibited here as in 'Jane Eyre.' Similar power is manifested in the delineation of character. With a few brief, vigorous touches, the picture starts into distinctness."—Edinburgh Review.
"'Shirley is very clever. It could not be otherwise. The faculty of graphic description, strong imagination, fervid and masculine diction, analytic skill, all are visible. . . . . Gems of rare thought and glorious passion shine here and there."—Times.
"We like the book as a whole: we like its spirit. The character of 'Shirley' is excellently conceived and well sustained; and touching is the story of Caroline. We sympathise with the author's general charity, with her special love for the old country, the old church, and the old duke; we kindle with her fervid bursts of eloquence, and recognise the truth of her pictures from life."—Fraser's Magazine.
"'Shirley' is a book demanding close perusal and careful consideration. The writer's main purpose has been to trace the fortunes and feelings of two girls: the one is tender, the other is sparkling; both suffer from the malady of unrest and dissatisfaction, and in both the desolateness and the fever are assuaged by one and the same master-enchanter—Love."—Athenæum.
"'Shirley' is a novel of remarkable power and brilliancy; it is calculated to rouse attention, excite the imagination, and keep the faculties in eager and impatient suspense. It will unquestionably add to the reputation of the author. Currer Bell's powers of description are displayed to greater advantage in this novel than in its predecessor."—Morning Post.
"'Shirley' is the anatomy of the female heart. It is a book which indicates exquisite feeling, and very great power of mind in the writer. The women are all divine."—Daily News.
"The novel before us is Yorkshire throughout—racy of the soil. There is something in it of kin to Jane Austen's books, or Maria Edgeworth's, or Walter Scott's. There is human life as it is in England, in the thoughtful and toiling, the employing and labouring classes, with the women and clergy thereto appurtenant."—Globe.
"'Villette' is a most remarkable work—a production altogether sui generis. Fullness and vigour of thought mark almost every sentence, and there is a sort of easy power pervading the whole narrative such as we have rarely met. The characters are sketched with a bold and free pencil, and their individuality is sustained with a consistency which marks a master's hand. The descriptions, too, are wonderfully graphic."—Edinburgh Review.
"This novel amply sustains the fame of the author of 'Jane Eyre' and 'Shirley' as an original and powerful writer. 'Villette' is a most admirably written novel, everywhere original, everywhere shrewd, and at heart everywhere kindly. The men, women, and children who figure throughout it have flesh and blood in them, and all are worked out in such a way as to evince a very keen spirit of observation, and a fine sense of the picturesque in character."—Examiner.
"There is throughout a charm of freshness which is infinitely delightful: freshness in observation, freshness in feeling, freshness in expression. Brain and heart are both held in suspense by the fascinating power of the writer."—Literary Gazette.
"The tale is one of the affections, and remarkable as a picture of manners. A burning heart glows throughout it, and one brilliantly distinct character keeps it alive."—Athenæum.
"Of interesting scenes and well-drawn characters there is abundance. The characters are various, happily conceived, and some of them painted with a truth of detail rarely surpassed."—Spectator.
"A work of astonishing power and passion. In it we read the actual thoughts and feelings of a strong, struggling soul." Westminster Review.
"'Villette' is not only a very able but a very pleasant book. It is a tale which, though here and there it is dashed with wonder and melancholy, is as a whole cheerful and piquant; abundant in clear, clean-cut, strongly drawn etchings, presenting so pleasant and effective a transcript of manners. English and Continental, that its success cannot fail to be remarkable."—Morning Chronicle.
"Everything written by Currer Bell is remarkable. She can touch nothing without leaving on it the stamp of originality. Of her three novels this is perhaps the strangest, the most astonishing, though not the best. The sustained ability is perhaps greater in 'Villette' than in its two predecessors. It is crowded with beauties, with good things, for which we look to the clear sight, deep feeling, and singular though not extensive experience of life, which we associate with the name of Currer Bell."—Daily News.
"'Villette' is entitled to take a very high place in the literature of fiction. The reader will find character nicely conceived and powerfully depicted; he will discover much quiet humour, a lively wit, brilliant dialogue, vivid descriptions, reflections both new and true, sentiment free from cant and conventionality, and bursts of eloquence and poetry, flashing here and there."—Critic.
"The fascination of genius dwells in this book, which is, in our judgment, superior to any of Currer Bell's previous efforts. For originality of conception, grasp of character, elaboration and consistency of detail, and picturesque force of expression, few works in the English language can stand the test of comparison with it."—Morning Post.
"A fiction of extraordinary literary power, and of singular fascination; it is one of the most absorbing of books, one of the most interesting of stories."—Globe.
"'Villette' may claim the unhesitating commendations of readers and critics. The autobiography of the heroine is at once natural, interesting, cheerful, piquant, and thoughtful."—Britannia.
4.
WUTHERING HEIGHTS and AGNES
GREY. By Ellis and Acton Bell.
A New Edition, with a Selection of their Literary Remains, and a Biographical Notice of both Authors, by Currer Bell. In One Volume.
"'Wuthering Heights' is strangely original. It bears a resemblance to some of those irregular German tales in which the writers, giving the reins to their fancy, represent personages as swayed and impelled to evil by supernatural influences. But they give spiritual identity to evil impulses, while Ellis Bell more naturally shows them as the offspring of the unregenerated heart. He displays considerable power in his creations. They have all the angularity of misshapen growth, and form in this respect a striking contrast to those regular forms we are accustomed to meet with in English fiction. They exhibit nothing of the composite character. There is in them no trace of ideal models. They are so new, so wildly grotesque, so entirely without art, that they strike us as proceeding from a mind of limited experience, but of original energy, and of a singular and distinctive cast. We do not know whether the author writes with any purpose; but we can speak of one effect of his production. It strongly shows the brutalising influence of unchecked passion. His characters are a commentary on the truth that there is no tyranny in the world like that which thoughts of evil exercise in the daring and reckless breast. Another reflection springing from the narrative is—that temper is often spoiled in the years of childhood. 'The child is father to the man.' The pains and crosses of its youthful years are engrafted in its blood, and form a sullen and a violent disposition."—Britannia.
"We look upon 'Wuthering Heights' as the flight of an impatient fancy, fluttering in the very exultation of young wings; sometimes beating against its solitary bars, but turning rather to exhaust, in a circumscribed space, the energy and agility which it may not yet spend in the heavens. In this thought let the critic take up the book; lay it down in what thought he will, there are some things in it he can lay down no more. Not a subordinate place or person in this novel but bears more or less the stamp of high genius. There are passages in this book of 'Wuthering Heights' of which any novelist, past or present, might be proud. We cannot praise too warmly the brave simplicity, the unaffected air of intense belief, the admirable combination of extreme likelihood with the rarest originality, the nice provision of the possible even in the highest effects of the supernatural, the easy strength and instinct of keeping with which the accessory circumstances are grouped, the exquisite but unconscious art with which the chiaro-scuro of the whole is managed; and the ungenial frigidity of time, place, weather, and persons, is made to heighten the unspeakable pathos of one ungovernable outburst. It has been said of Shakspeare that he drew cases which the physician might study; Ellis Bell has done no less."—Palladium.
"To estimate this work aright, the reader must have all the scenic accompaniment before him. He must not fancy himself in a London mansion, but in an old north-country manor-house, situated in the 'dreary, dreamy moorland,' far from the haunts of civilised men. There is, at all events, keeping in the book: the groups of figures and the scenery are in harmony with each other. There is a touch of Salvator Rosa in all."—Atlas.
"'Wuthering Heights' bears the stamp of a profoundly individual, strong, and passionate mind. The memoir is one of the most touching chapters in literary biography."—Non-conformist.
"A volume of poems which will not detract from the fame of the authors. The poems bearing the signature of Currer Bell exhibit the impress of a matured intellect and masterly hand."—Morning Herald.
"Remarkable as being the first efforts of undoubted genius to find some congenial form of expression. They are not common verses, but show many of the vigorous qualities in the prose works of the same writers: the love of nature which characterizes Currer Bell's prose works pervades the whole of the present volume."—Christian Remembrancer.