‘The intellectual feebleness of readers in general prevents their forming a discriminating estimate of the worth of such works; and most of those who are capable of discrimination have had their standard of expectation so loewred by the production of mediocrity, that they languidly acquiesce in the implied assumption that novels are removed from the canons of common-sense criticism.’
George Henry Lewes: ‘Criticism in relation to novels’, The Fortnightly Review, London: 1863
