the experience of reading in Britain, from 1450 to 1945...

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Charlotte Bronte and family : The Emigrant Family

Charlotte Bronte to W. S. Williams, 5 April 1849:

'The Cornhill books are still our welcome and congenial resource while Anne [sister, in terminal decline] is well enough to enjoy reading. Carlyle's "Miscellanies" interest me greatly. We have read "The Emigrant Family." The characters in the work are good, full of quiet truth and nature, and the local colouring is excellent; yet I can hardly call it a good novel. Reflective, truth-loving, and even elevated as is Alexander Harris's mind, I should say he scarcely possesses the creative faculty in sufficient vigour to excel as a writer of fiction. He creates nothing — he only copies. "The Testimony to the Truth [of Christianity]" is a better book than any tale he can write will ever be.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Bronte and family     Print: Book

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