Our Mutual Friend question

Interesting find/article about James' feelings towards Dickens...

"The talented Mr. Dickens

By Katherine A. Powers

Globe Correspondent / December 13, 2009

Henry James called Charles Dickens “the greatest of superficial novelists’’ and went on to write words so shocking that, when I came across them, I gasped: “It were, in our opinion,’’ he declared in high subjunctive, “an offence against humanity to place Mr. Dickens among the greatest novelists.’’

This is the sort of unhinged statement you might expect from a man who, as W. Somerset Maugham put it, merely “observed life from a window, and too often was inclined to content himself with no more than what his friends told him they saw when they looked out of a window.’’

I tend to agree with W. Somerset Maugham's opinion on James. Dickens knew the people and the world around him and walked through that world (London, Paris, etc.) for countless hours and miles.

Find the entire article here:

http://archive.boston.com/ae/books/ar...