DOI Artikel:
Books: a letter to the editor and an offer of a prize
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.27806#0129
Books
A Letter to the Editor
and an Offer of a Prize
From “ The Yellow Dwarf”
Sir : In London, if one is placed sufficiently low in the social
hierarchy—or if, high placed, one is sufficiently fond of low
life—to frequent houses in which Literature as a subject of conver-
sation is not inhibited, one may occasionally hear it said of this or
that recently published book that it has just been “ reviewed ” in
the Athenaum or “ noticed ” in the Academy, “ praised ” by the-
Spectator or “ slated ” by the Saturday Review. I don’t know
whether you will agree with me in deeming it significant that one
almost never hears of a book nowadays that it has been criticised.
People who run as they talk are not commonly precisians in their
choice of words, but the fact that the verb to criticise, as governing
the accusative case of the substantive book, has virtually dropped
out of use, seems to me a happy example of right instinct. Books
(books in belles lettres, at any rate, novels, poems, essays, what you
will, not to include scientific, historical, or technical works), books
in belles lettres are almost never criticised in the professedly critical
journals of our period in England. They are reviewed, noticed,
praised, slated, but almost never criticised.
The Yellow Book—Vol. VII. H
I hasten
A Letter to the Editor
and an Offer of a Prize
From “ The Yellow Dwarf”
Sir : In London, if one is placed sufficiently low in the social
hierarchy—or if, high placed, one is sufficiently fond of low
life—to frequent houses in which Literature as a subject of conver-
sation is not inhibited, one may occasionally hear it said of this or
that recently published book that it has just been “ reviewed ” in
the Athenaum or “ noticed ” in the Academy, “ praised ” by the-
Spectator or “ slated ” by the Saturday Review. I don’t know
whether you will agree with me in deeming it significant that one
almost never hears of a book nowadays that it has been criticised.
People who run as they talk are not commonly precisians in their
choice of words, but the fact that the verb to criticise, as governing
the accusative case of the substantive book, has virtually dropped
out of use, seems to me a happy example of right instinct. Books
(books in belles lettres, at any rate, novels, poems, essays, what you
will, not to include scientific, historical, or technical works), books
in belles lettres are almost never criticised in the professedly critical
journals of our period in England. They are reviewed, noticed,
praised, slated, but almost never criticised.
The Yellow Book—Vol. VII. H
I hasten