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What is a novel? The question is asked, and answered, by Mr. Marion Crawford in a kind of pocket-companion for novel-readers, entitled The Novel: What it is. Some say the novel is a work of art; though that is what it should be rather than what it is. And some may still murmur inquiringly, after reading Mr. Crawford's interesting observations, The novel; what is it? Mr. Crawford's views about the craft in which he is a present master appear to us sound and convincing, even if they meet not all the difficulties that beset those who require definitions that embrace all the kinds of fiction. The novel, he remarks, is a marketable commodity. That is its natural order. It belongs to the family of luxuries, and is of the class artistic luxuries. Probably few will deny these propositions. The novel must amuse and instruct us, and it is no bad thing if it makes the reader think, or think of thinking. As to the sterile controversy of romance and realism, Mr. Crawford sensibly observes that the novel may, and should, combine those qualities. It may even be historical. But it must not be a purpose-novel -that very odious thing. The novel, Mr. Crawford thinks, may educate, may elevate, may purify, but it must not preach. Here be excellent conclusions. Excellent also is Mr. Crawford's protest against the absurd requirement of certain scientific critics that the novelist should be possessed of encyclopedic knowledge. Let him have experience, observation, literary skill, and, above all, knowledge of the heart and power to strike at the heart. The greater men are, the more heart they have. There is heart in all great novels, and this is the reason they are the favorite reading of great men. Purpose and theory, be they never so exalted, kill; but it is heart that makes the novel to live. Such, it seems, is what Mr. Crawford would inculcate, though his horror of the purpose-novel, or of the least semblance of pointing a moral, makes us hesitate to put the matter so plainly.-- The Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science and Art, Vol. 75

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