others in like capacity, will easily discriminate between authors
suitable for juvenile or untrained tastes, and authors whose appeal
is specially to those of maturer thought and experience. Differing
as much in method and style as in choice of period and character
type, Thackeray's "Vanity Fair" and George Eliot's "Romola" have at
least this in common--they require a very high degree of
intelligence for their due appreciation. Who, among those of us
with any knowledge of such works, would dream of recommending them
to a youthful reader fresh from the perusal of Miss Yonge's "Little
Duke," or Captain Marryatt's "Children of the New Forest"?

Naturally in a list of this kind there is bound to be very great
inequality; certain periods have been wholly ignored by writers of
the first rank, while in others we have something like an embarras
de richesse. Consequently, I have been compelled, here and there,
to insert authors of only mediocre merit. In other cases, again, I
have not hesitated to omit works by writers of acknowledged
position when these have seemed below the author's usual standard,
and where no gap had to be filled. I would instance the James II.-
William III. period. Here Stanley Weyman and "Edna Lyall" might
have been represented, but, there being no dearth of good novels
dealing with both the above reigns, I did not deem it advisable to
call in these popular writers at the point which has been very
generally considered their lowest. I mention this to show that
omissions do not necessarily mean ignorance, though, in covering
such an immense ground, I cannot doubt that romances worthy of a
place in my list have been overlooked.

I think many will be surprised to find how large a proportion of
our best writers (English and American) have entered the domain of