MODERN WRITERS OF FICTION.
[To THE EDITOR -OF THE " SPECTATOR."] SIR,—In your article on the late Mr: Charles Reade, in your issue of April 19th, are you not a little unjust to the many able writers of fiction still living? Had you not excepted Mrs. Oliphant, as the only notable writer of stories left amongst us, the sting would not have been so painful; but to include her, Mr. Reade, and Mr. Trollope amongst the great authors of fiction, and not to include such authors as Thomas Hardy,—in his own way a most uniqhe and remarkable writer,—Black, Blackmore, Besant, George Macdonald, Robert Buchanan, Short- house, Marion Crawford, and—amongst ladies—Miss Linskill,— of whose story in Good Words for this year you spoke so highly and so justly hi your ".Current Literature" notices of April 26th, —Miss Fothergill, Mrs. Walford, and, no doubt, many others whom I do not at this moment think of, seems to me a most hasty judgment, and certain to give pain to all the living writers of fiction .inferentially slighted—the more so that your criti-: cisms and judgments are so highly valued by the literary world. —I am, Sir, &c., [The writers named are not " enchaining," which was the adjective we purposely used. To claim for Mr. Macdonald, Miss Fothergill, or Mr. Marion Crawford, rank with Mrs. Oliphant would be, in our judgment, unsound criticism—En. Spectator.]
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