Before leaving the subject of older writers, it may be mentioned
that not a few of the works chosen to represent them are, at the
moment, out of print. To anyone objecting that something ought to
have been done to indicate this in each separate case, I would urge
that the "out of print" line can never be drawn with precision in
view of constant reprints as well as of further extinctions.
Perhaps this introduction may be most fitly concluded by something
in the nature of apology for Historical Romance itself. Not only
has fault been found with the deficiencies of unskilled authors in
that department, but the question has been asked by one or two
critics of standing--What right has the Historical Novel to exist
at all? More often than not, it is pointed out, the Romancist
gives us a mass of inaccuracies, which, while they mislead the
ignorant (i.e., the majority?), are an unpardonable offence to the
historically-minded reader. Moreover, the writer of such Fiction,
though he be a Thackeray or a Scott, cannot surmount barriers which
are not merely hard to scale, but absolutely impassable.
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