Christopher Hawtree
Everyone knows of Evelyn, a good many of Auberon, too few of Arthur, but who now reads their namesake Edwin, the Lancashire dialect poet? Once famous for his 'Come Whoam To Thy Childer An' Me', he is among those brought to light in Nigel Cross's little-noticed study of 19th- century Grub Street, The Common Writer (CUP). Partly founded on the archives of the Royal Literary Fund, it also gives a new, monetary perspective on more cele- brated authors. The spirit of this scholarly, but more than readable, work even makes itself felt in the acknowledgments: 'to my publishers I am grateful for the promise (made in 1980) of £250 on receipt of typescript and £250 on publication; I understand that this — for an academic press — is a noble gesture.' Too little space to mention David Nokes's Swift, Maynard Mack's Pope and Robert Martin's Edward Fitzgerald, especially as there are also the two volumes of Henry James's criticism in the excellent Library of America (CUP): odd that they have not been reviewed anywhere. These 3000 pages are something to be read night and day.
Jonathan Raban's Foreign Land, plug- ged week after week in the Sunday Times, presented interesting characters and situa- tions, but did too little with them to justify the quality of the writing.
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