3.
Perhaps also prejudicial to Cornwallis were two extravagant works which he had previously published. One was a poetical narrative entitled Yarra Yarra,[1] whose setting was Australia, which Cornwallis had already visited as a member of the British Colonial Civil Service. The other was a prose work called The New El Dorado[2] which told of British Columbia. Both books had not been well received; and the question had been raised as to whether Cornwallis had actually been in British Columbia.[3] I have been able to locate six reviews, all anonymous, of Cornwallis' Two Journeys to Japan, four of which appeared on or before February 12, 1859, in the Supplement of the Spectator,[4] in Chambers' Journal,[5] in The Literary Gazette,[6] and in The Athenaeum.[7] The mildest of these
- ↑ Kinahan Cornwallis, Yarra Yarra; or the wandering aborigine (London, 1858).
- ↑ Kinahan Cornwallis, The New El Dorado (London, 1858).
- ↑ Cf. Household Words, XVIII, no. 437 (Aug. 7, 1858), 181-184, for a review of the Yarra Yarra. The reviewer in The Athenaeum, no.1612 (Sept. 18, 1858), 361, calls the New El Dorado a sample of "book-making," and suggests that half of the book, along with the sketches, "may have been done at home." Also, "we cannot say of the personal adventures here detailed that they could not have been as easily imagined as experienced."
- ↑ The Spectator, no.1597 (Feb. 5, 1859), Supplement, p.160.
- ↑ Chambers' Journal, XI, no.267 (Feb. 12, 1859), 100-102.
- ↑ The Literary Gazette, II, no.33 (Feb.12, 1859), 204-205.
- ↑ The Athenaeum, no.1633 (Feb. 12, 1859), 214-215. The Athenaeum, passim, as in No.1634 (Feb. 19, 1859), 242, contained advertisements of Cornwallis' work in which were quoted excerpts of reviews from the Athenaeum itself, from the Literary Gazette, Chambers' Journal, the Birmingham Journal, the Globe, and the World. I have not been able to see the reviews in the last three journals.
