The Westminster Review Volume 76-77 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1861 Excerpt: ...foreign novelists, and we get outlines of foreign novels. Moreover, these outlines, though well done, are of trifling value. The authoress imagines that novels which would be unbearable if translated in full, will be acceptable when presented in outline. Our opinion is, that such novels should never be translated at all. Again, we object to giving abridgments of foreign novels which deserve to be read entire. These ought unquestionably to be rendered into EnglUh. Georgina Gordon is a very fair translator, but she sometimes commits the error of translating German idioms too literally.' We hope that she way employ her powers better hereafter than in producing such sketches as are cent lined in this volume. It is absurd to expect every novel-writer to display unusual imaginative, creative, and descriptive powers: these are the attributes of genius; but all who engage in novel-writing may write clearly, and describe correctly, if they only take sufficient pains. Now, the authoress of "My Heart's in the Highlands"2" has this great merit, that she uniformly does her best, and is never hasty, careless, or silly. The diligence with which old books have been ransacked for points of detail wherewith to fill this volume is surprising, even in these das of minute trifling and affection for accessories. This information is paraded rather too often: we are made too sensible of its being procured at second-hand. The scene of the tale is Glen Aldour, a favoured spot, where the cuckoo is heard sooner than in the Midland counties, and which is a "perfect Acadia in the months of April and May." Mary Macdonnel, or Aldour, is the heroine; her father being the proprietor of the Glen. The owners of an adjoining estate named Finralia are the rivals of the ...