Selected Letters of George Meredith

Rating:
Summary: Meredith for Specialists
Review: I ordered this book, supposing it would be a selection of the most revealing and characterful of Meredith's letters, and was disappointed to find it is essentially a supplement to Cline's three-volume edition (1970), giving letters either omitted by Cline or printed in an incomplete form. Most of the new letters are short and of limited interest, though the annotation by Shaheen (the author of one of the best studies of the novels) is impressively learned and generally reliable. This book is essential reading for the Meredith specialist, but cannot be recommended to the general reader. Meredith was too reserved to be a great letter-writer, comparable to Cowper or Keats; but his style, vigorous and free of cliche, is as delightful in his letters as in his novels. The best place to begin remains his son's two-volume edition of selected letters, published in 1912 and easy to pick up via the internet.