''"My masters... in poetry, were Swinburne and Meredith among the living, Rossetti, Matthew Arnold and Robert Browning among the lately dead. To these I would add Edward Fitzgerald... In prose, the masters were Stendhal, Flaubert, Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, Guy de Maupassant, Prosper Merimee and Walter Pater".'
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: John Masefield Print: Book
Noted by Leon Edel in "Brief Chronology" of Henry James: "1860: Returns to Newport ... Reads Balzac and Merimee."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James Print: Unknown
'[Merimee's] book has arrived yesterday. I have only begun reading it.'
[letter to Venceslas-Victor Jacquemont]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
Friday 15 August 1924: 'When I was 20 I liked 18th Century prose; I liked Hakluyt, Merimee. I read masses of Carlyle, Scott's life & letters, Gibbon, all sorts of two volume biographies, & Shelley.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Stephen Print: Book
'I do know the Mérimée story you speak of. It is "Tamango". A rather good piece of work. [...] I read it years ago.'
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'I have spoken of his affection for Dickens. Trollope he liked. Thackeray I
think not over much, though he had a due regard for such creations as Major
Pendennis. Meredith's characters were to him "seven feet high," and his style
too inflated. He admired Hardy's poetry. He always spoke with appreciation
of Howells, especially of the admirable "Rise of Silas Lapham". His
affectionate admiration for Stephen Crane we know from his introduction to
Thomas Beer's biography of that gifted writer. Henry James in his middle
period--the Henry James of "Daisy Miller", "The Madonna of the Future",
"Greville Fane", "The Real Thing", "The Pension Beaurepas"--was precious to
him. But of his feeling for that delicate master, for Anatole France, de
Maupassant, Daudet, and Turgenev, he has written in his "Notes on Life and
Letters". I remember too that he had a great liking for those two very
different writers, Balzac and Mérimée. Of philosophy he had read a good
deal, but on the whole spoke little. Schopenhauer used to give him
satisfaction twenty years and more ago, and he liked both the personality
and the writings of William James.'
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
