All Russian!

Tuesday, March 20th., Cadogan Square, London.

The twelve finest novels in the world are all Russian!

First, Dostoevsky. Whenever my mind dwells on the greatest achievements in fiction I think, before any other novel, of "The Brothers Karamazov". I implacably affirm that no greater novel has yet been written. It will be written, I doubt not - for I have a dogmatic belief in progress. Further I rate "The Idiot" little lower than "The Brothers". On the same level is "The House of the Dead" which is lovely, and shorter. It is, in my opinion, the most celestial restorative of damaged faith in human nature that any artist ever produced; the most successful and touching demonstration of the truth that man is not altogether vile. Then fourth is "Crime and Punishment" which cannot possibly be omitted from the dozen.

Now Tolstoy. He wrote three terrific novels which must be included: "Anna Karenina", "War and Peace" and "Resurrection". All three took Europe and America by the neck, and they have never in the slightest degree relaxed their hold on the imagination of the Western literary world. You cannot get away from these books! They force themselves instantly into any general discussion of the novel. Everybody who has read them remembers them, and those who haven't read them must pretend to have done so to avoid ignominy.

I have now already mentioned seven books. Exclude any one of them from the twelve and what would you put in its place? Would you dare oust any of them in favour of Dickens, or Austen, or even Hardy?

Then Turgenev. He cannot quite so powerfully move me as Dostoevsky or Tolstoy, but he was certainly a more finished artist than either of them. Everything that he did shows a superb perfection of writing style, even translated into English. What form, what control of the vehicle, what grace, what tenderness! "Virgin Soil", "Fathers and Sons", and "On the Eve" must be included in the dozen. Together they mark an epoch in the sociological development of the novel.

Finally Gogol. He wrote one novel, "Dead Souls". Despite the indignities it has suffered in various translations, and at the hands of misguided individuals who had the impudence to 'finish' it, "Dead Souls" has taken its place in Europe as a comic, ironic masterpiece of the first order. "Dead Souls" is gorgeous reading. It is the greatest lark imaginable, and withal deadly.

That makes twelve.