The Press: Verdicts of the Times

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Are book reviewers infallible? Not even a book reviewer would claim to be. In a special literary publication last week, the New York Times reprinted some interesting answers from 100 reviews it has run in the last 100 years. In general, the Times could stand pat on its reviews. They had not always spotted the worth of a book. But they had oftener been right (in the eyes of posterity) than wrong.

On the Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin (reviewed March 28, 1860): "One of the most important contributions ever made to philosophic science . . . The doctrine of progressive modification by Natural Selection . . . will, in fact, make a revolution in Natural History."

Thirty Poems, by William Cullen Bryant (Jan. 30, 1864): "We may, indeed, with satisfaction, accept him as the national poet of America."

Poems, by Alfred Tennyson (July 24, 1965): "These two elegant volumes . . . present us with the entire title deeds to immortality of one of whom the Anglo-Saxon speaking world has consented to receive as the representative poet of the intellectual era."

Drum Taps, by Walt Whitman (Nov. 22, 1865): "Mr. Whitman . . . has no ear, no sense of the melody of verse . . . fortunately [he has] better claims on the gratitude of his countrymen than any he will ever derive from his vocation as a poet . . . His duties in the hospitals at Washington during the war will confer honor on his memory when Leaves of Grass are withered and Drum Taps have ceased to vibrate."

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain (Jan. 13, 1877): "We have not the least objection that rough boys be the heroes of a storybook . . ."

War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy (Jan. 31, 1886): ". . . An illustrated historical essay rather than a novel."

Capital, by Karl Marx (May 1, 1887): "A man in a towering rage . . . [A] remarkable book . . . the result of pure psychological spleen . . . To follow [Marx's proposals] is to plunge us into chaos. But there are advocates of chaos."

Plain Tales from the Hills, by Rudyard Kipling (June 15, 1890): "Mr. Kipling does not write like an artist . . . The stories are just such short, snappy things as the editors of sporting papers know are acceptable to nine-tenths of their readers."

The Golden Bough, by J. G. Frazer (June 22, 1890): ". . . A most enjoyable and instructive essay."

Plays: Pleasant and Unpleasant, by George Bernard Shaw (Arms and the Man, Candida, etc.) (June 18, 1898): "The fault of Shaw . . . is his lack of poetry . . . and the critic or satirist who is not a bit of a poet cannot reasonably hope to win renown as a dramatist."

Cabbages and Kings, by O. Henry (Dec. 17, 1904): "There are times when the story puzzles in its zigzag course . . . but as it is one finds a joy in its very obscurity."

The Brothers Karamazov, by Feodor Dostoevsky (June 30, 1912): "Chronic hysteria pervades the whole lot [of characters] from the point of view of the Western person . . ."

Of Human Bondage, by W. Somerset Maugham (Aug. 1, 1915): ". . . One of those novels which deserve and should receive the attention of all those who care for what is worthwhile in contemporary fiction."