The yellow book: an illustrated quarterly (12.1897)

A Forgotten Novelist

By Hermione Ramsden

There is no sufficient reason to account for the manner in
which Robert Bage has been forgotten, while numbers of
his contemporaries have been canonised among the classics. It
may be true that his works have not the enduring qualities of
Samuel Richardson’s many-volumed novels, yet they are not
without many of the attributes which go towards the making of
popular romances, and in many respects they are better calculated
to appeal to the reading public of our time. His style is brighter
than Richardson’s, less sentimental than Fielding’s; his good
men are less priggish, and his young women have more of nature
in them ; while, as regards his subjects, he may be said to have
much in common with some modern authors, who would find it
no easy matter to surpass him in the boldness with which he up-
holds his opinions.

Bage was born on the 29th of January, 1728, at Darley, where
his father was a paper manufacturer, which profession he after-
wards followed. In politics he was a Whig, while in religion it is
said that, for a time at least, he was a Quaker, which would ac-
count for his peculiar way of writing ; but if this was the case, he
does not appear to have remained one long, for, to use the expres-
sion of a contemporary, he very soon u reasoned himself into

infidelity,”