Ch. 10: The Small House at Allington

"THE SMALL HOUSE AT ALLINGTON," "CAN YOU FORGIVE HER?" "RACHEL RAY," AND THE "FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW"

During the early months of 1862 Orley Farm was still being brought out in numbers, and at the same time Brown, Jones and Robinson was appearing in the Cornhill Magazine. In September, 1862, the Small House at Allington began its career in the same periodical. The work on North America had also come out in 1862. In August, 1863, the first number of Can You Forgive Her? was published as a separate serial, and was continued through 1864. In 1863 a short novel was produced in the ordinary volume form, called Rachel Ray. In addition to these I published during the time two volumes of stories called The Tales of all Countries. In the early spring of 1865 Miss Mackenzie was issued in the same form as Rachel Ray; and in May of the same year The Belton Estate was commenced with the commencement of the Fortnightly Review, of which periodical I will say a few words in this chapter.

I quite admit that I crowded my wares into the market too quickly,--because the reading world could not want such a quantity of matter from the hands of one author in so short a space of time. I had not been quite so fertile as the unfortunate gentleman who disgusted the publisher in Paternoster Row,--in the story of whose productiveness I have always thought there was a touch of romance,--but I had probably done enough to make both publishers and readers think that I was coming too often beneath their notice. Of publishers, however, I must speak collectively, as my sins were, I think, chiefly due to the encouragement which I received from them individually. What I wrote for the Cornhill Magazine, I always wrote at the instigation of Mr. Smith. My other works were published by Messrs. Chapman & Hall, in compliance with contracts made by me with them, and always made with their good-will. Could I have been two separate persons at one and the same time, of whom one might have been devoted to Cornhill and the other to the interests of the firm in Piccadilly, it might have been very well;--but as I preserved my identity in both places, I myself became aware that my name was too frequent on titlepages.

Critics, if they ever trouble themselves with these pages, will, of course, say that in what I have now said I have ignored altogether the one great evil of rapid production,--namely, that of inferior work. And of course if the work was inferior because of the too great rapidity of production, the critics would be right. Giving to the subject the best of my critical abilities, and judging of my own work as nearly as possible as I would that of another, I believe that the work which has been done quickest has been done the best. I have composed better stories--that is, have created better plots--than those of The Small House at Allington and Can You Forgive Her? and I have portrayed two or three better characters