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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 August 2010
I was going to devote my next chapter entirely to Jane Austen's novels, when I recollected that such a chapter could by no means be made complete without referring to other novels and novelists at the same time. Such a chapter may be at once discarded by .those who do not care for the subject, or who are satisfied to read and enjoy their novels without being troubled with my criticisms. But the theme is one too enticing for me to leave untouched, especially as I belong to the family which Jane Austen tells us were in her day ‘great novel-readers,’ and am not ashamed to confess that I have read as many as most people, and shall probably read a great many more. Novels are the sugar-plums of literature, and a library without novels would be as deficient as a childhood without sugar-plums, although neither the one nor the other would be satisfactory if unsupplied with something of a more substantial character.
I think it is immensely interesting to read side by side and compare the different styles of the novels which have charmed successive generations, and, in discussing Jane Austen's works, to contrast those of other writers who wrote practically for the same generation.
Several passages in our letters show us that Jane Austen was well acquainted with some at least of Richardson's novels.
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