Henry James to Charles Eliot Norton, 4 February 1872: "You, like all the world here I suppose, have been reading Forster's Dickens. It interested, but disappointed me -- through having too many opinions and 'remarks' and not enough facts and documents."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James Print: Book
Harriet Martineau, in letter of 20 March 1873: 'The Life of Dickens is far too exclusively occupied with his personal relations with Forster [...] Yet it has an interest, and is worth reading. In the second volume I am much struck by Dickens's hysterical restlessness [...] To how great an extent the women of his family are ignored in the book! The whole impression left by it is very melancholy.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau Print: Book
'Dr. Sir.
Poets tell us that love is blind ? I fear indifference is more so. It is many months since I sent you a slight gage d?amour; it is many years (do not be alarmed, I am still very young) since I first became acquainted with your worth and excellence. I have seen you ? met you ? read your works ? heard you speak ? listened, in a breathless state, to your eloquent and manly expression of the sentiments which you do honor; and still by no word or sign have I discovered that you recognized in me the giver of the simple worthless riding whip which I have often seen in your hand, and once (when you [ ] it) nearly touched.'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Dickens Print: BookManuscript: Sheet
'Who writes the literary reviews in the Examiner? I hoped Mr Forster, because I was so much delighted with Oliver Goldsmith's life, and (long ago) with the Lives of the Statesmen &c; but people say he no longer writes the literary articles.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell Print: Book
'Who writes the literary reviews in the Examiner? I hoped Mr Forster, because I was so much delighted with Oliver Goldsmith's life, and (long ago) with the Lives of the Statesmen &c; but people say he no longer writes the literary articles.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell Print: Book
'I try and find out the places where Mr Forster said I strained after common-place materials for effect, till the whole book dances before my eyes as a commonplace piece of effect'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell Print: Serial / periodical
'I have just begun Forster's Life of Dickens again. I did not finish it before. I think that will start me off for the autumn. I want a fact book not a fiction book. There are some wonderful things in it. When Dickens finally left the blacking factory he so much hated, he wept. "With a relief so strange that it was like oppression, I went home".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Antonia White Print: Book
