Biography & Criticism - Softcover

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1860. Excerpt: ... RUSSELL'S INDIAN DIARY. We have here the private diary of Mr. W. H. Russell, whose letters to this journal from the Crimea. and subsequently from India, have made his name a familiar word in the mouths of his countrymen. To account, in part, for his extraordinary popularity, Mr. Russell has been the foremost man of a file who are taking up a new place in the field of literature; and, apart from his success, of which we are hardly free to speak as proudly as we feel, he is the most conspicuous representative of a rising class, who are undertaking to write history under novel conditions. Whereas hitherto the historic muse has erected her monuments over the grave of past transactions, or has traced her pictures at her ease, with the facilities of leisure and in the serenity of retrospect, in this instance the panorama of war and policy was painted on the spot, while the contest was raging and the issue was in suspense. To sketch iu outlines and lay on colours beneath the open sky is no novelty in art, "My Diary in India in the Year 1858-9." By William Howard Russell, LL.D., Special Correspondent of the Times, with Illustrations. Two vols. Routledge, Warne, and Routledge, 1860. From the Times of Jan. 16, I860. but to attempt it on such a scale as this, and with such broad effects, we may boldly contend was quite new in literature. The literary workman was summoned suddenly to a turn in the reporter's gallery, where the disputants were legions, and where empire was in debate; he was expected to compete with the velocity of the electric telegraph; to spread open the scroll of his Clio, and to inscribe it with current transactions, his pen must keep pace with time, and his reflections" be contemporary with events; and it was incumbent on him to exert some of th...