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Oxford: Horace Hart Printer to the University
Henry Frowde Oxford University Press London, Edinburgh, Glasgow New York, Toronto, Melbourne & Bombay
Born, Irvine, Ayrshire May 2, 1779 Died, Greenock April 11, 1839
_‘The Entail’ was first published in 1822. In ‘The World’s Classics’ it was first published in 1913._
For many years I have been wondering why John Galt’s works are fallen into such neglect: that they should be almost wholly forgotten, even by readers to whom Scott and Jane Austen, Fanny Burney and Miss Edgeworth are indispensable, is what I cannot understand. If his Autobiography were not a rare book, an explanation might suggest itself. For supposing that the public, before reading _The Entail_, _Annals of the Parish_, or _The Ayrshire Legatees_, had been so unfortunate as to attempt the reading of the Autobiography, no one could be surprised that it made up its mind to read no more of him. A more tedious, flat, and dull book was never written by a man of genius: it is never interesting, never amusing, and always exasperating to any one who knows what he could do, and has done. To wade through it is very nearly impossible, and there is nothing to be gained by the achievement. Galt’s life was not particularly interesting in itself, but many lives less eventful have been so written as to be worth reading, and easy to read.
There is, however, little danger of Galt’s now losing possible admirers by the unlucky accident of their stumbling on his Autobiography before making his acquaintance in the right way--by reading his really excellent works of fiction: for copies of the Autobiography are not at all easy to come at. I suppose they have mostly been burned by his admirers.