rences capable of explanation by human agency and natural coincidence.
Mary Russell Mitford edited several volumes of sketches of rural character and scenery, delightful and finished in style, and unrivalled in her manner of description. It is by these sketches of English life that she obtained the greatest share of her popularity. She wrote also an opera called "Sadak and Kalasrade," and four tragedies, "Julian," "Foscari," "Rienzi," and "Charles the First." All were successful; "Rienzi," in particular, long continued a favorite.
Elizabeth Inchbald's two novels "The Simple Story" and "Nature and Art," have long ranked among standard works. Besides novels she wrote a number of dramas, some of which were very successful.
Maria Edgeworth published a new work almost every year from the beginning of the 19th Century to 1825. The novels "Castle Rackrent," "Belinda," "Vivian." "Harrington and Ormond," and many others followed each other rapidly, and all were welcomed and approved by the public. Her best and last work of fiction, "Helen," appeared in 1834.
Mary Shelley, the wife of the famous poet Percy Shelley, is renowned as the author of the romances "Frankenstein,"
"Valperga, or the Life and Adventures of Castruccio, Prince of Lucca"; "Falkner"; "Lodore," and "The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck." A most peculiar work is "The Last Men," a fiction of the final agonies of human society owing to the universal spread of pestilence.
Among the dramatists of the 19th Century Joanna Baillie was the foremost. In her "Plays of Passion" she illustrates each of the deepest and strongest passions of the human mind, such as Hate, Love, Jealousy, Fear, by a tragedy and a comedy. Other dramas were "The Family Legend"; "Henriquez"; "The Separation," and other plays, which show remarkable power of analysis, and observation. They are all written in vigorous style.
Of the numerous novelists of the 19th Century Charlotte Bronte was received with universal delight. Her novels "Jane Eyre," "Shirley" and "Villette" have all the vigor and individuality of poetic genius. She was "a star-like soul, whose genius followed no tradition and left no successors."
Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell will be remembered for her intensely interesting books "Mary Barton," "North and South," the exquisitely humorous "Cranford," and "Cousin Phyllis," which has been fitly called an idyll in prose.
The prolific Catherine Grace Gore gives in the novels "The Banker's Wife," "Cecil, or the Adventures of a Coxcomb," "Greville," and "Ormington," masterful pictures of the life and pursuits of the English upper classes.
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