R,CHARD MONCKTON MILNES was born in the year - OUDL Home

30 Hugh Walpolenaturally divides. These are the old influences survivingfrom the earlier simpler creative age of which I havealready spoken. Against them, meeting them with all thebright scornful cocksureness of the triumphant young wefind the poetry, realism and intellectuality of the modernnovel. It is the opening charges of this battle that givesthe novel of the 'seventies its character and drama.About Wilkie Collins a word must be said. By 1870 hehad reached that sad decline into contemporary neglectthat clouded all his later years. It is a sad story not tobe told here: he, the intimate friend of Dickens and acitizen of the inner circle of letters, was now alreadydeserted and almost forgotten. It is true that two of hisvery best novels appeared during the early 'seventies,Poor Miss Finch in 1872 and The New Magdalen in 1873,but the decline after this was very swift, and five yearslater novels like The Two Destinies and A ShockingStory proved how ruinous to any talent over-productionand scamped work must be.He is, however, the best melodramatist of the 'seventiesif we allow that Charles Reade was something more thanthat. Whether there has ever been a better detectivenovel in English than The Moonstone I cannot say. Formy part I believe not. We are at this very momentsuffering from a flood of detective romances produced Ibelieve mainly for Cabinet Ministers and the moresuperior literary critics. God forbid that I should throwscorn on them, but I do feel that for the most part theirauthors might study the better work of Wilkie Collinswith advantage; most of them are algebraical problems,clever and adroit on occasion and on occasion notclever and adroit at all. Collins has Count Fosco, MissFinch and many another memorable lady and gentlemanto his credit. 'The Woman in White' is a real womanand not a mere numerical clothes peg.