Charles Reade - Reputation

Reputation

Reade fell out of fashion by the turn of the century—"it is unusual to meet anyone who has voluntarily read him," wrote George Orwell in an essay on Reade—but during the 19th century Reade was one of England's most popular novelists. He was not highly regarded by critics. The following assessment is typical:

A strong, healthy air of honest and high purpose breathes through nearly all the stories. An utter absence of cant, affectation, and sham distinguishes them. A surprising variety of descriptive power, at once bold, broad, and realistic is one of their great merit. Mr. Reade can describe a sea-fight, a storm, the forging of a horseshoe, the ravages of an inundation, the trimming of a lady's dress, the tuning of a piano, with equal accuracy and apparent zest. . . . Indeed, Mr. Reade wants no quality which is necessary to make a powerful story-teller, while he is distinguished from all mere story-tellers by the fact that he has some great social object to serve in nearly everything he undertakes to detail. More than this I do not believe he is, nor, despite the evidences of something yet higher which were given in 'Christie Johnstone' and 'The Cloister and the Hearth,' do I think he ever could have been. He is a magnificent specimen of the modern special correspondent, endowed with the additional and unique gift of a faculty for throwing his report into the form of a thrilling story. But it requires something more than this, something higher than this, to make a great novelist whom the world will always remember. Mr. Reade is unsurpassed in the second class of English novelists, but he does not belong to the front rank. His success has been great in its way, but it is for an age and not for time.

The author George Orwell summed up Reade's attraction as "the same charm as one finds in R. Austin Freeman's detective stories or Lieutenant-Commander Gould's collections of curiosities—the charm of useless knowledge," going on to say that

Reade was a man of what one might call penny-encyclopaedic learning. He possessed vast stocks of disconnected information which a lively narrative gift allowed him to cram into books which would at any rate pass as novels. If you have the sort of mind that takes a pleasure in dates, lists, catalogues, concrete details, descriptions of processes, junk-shop windows and back numbers of the Exchange and Mart, the sort of mind that likes knowing exactly how a medieval catapult worked or just what objects a prison cell of the eighteen-forties contained, then you can hardly help enjoying Reade.

During his career, the prolific Reade was involved in several literary feuds involving accusations of plagiarism. He strongly defended himself, but invoked standards on literary borrowing that are looser than those of today. Reade is frequently discussed in studies of evolving attitudes toward plagiarism.

Reade is credited with the quote: "Sow a thought, and you reap an act; Sow an act, and you reap a habit; Sow a habit, and you reap a character; Sow a character, and you reap a destiny”. These days it is often adapted to:

"Mind your thoughts for they become your words; mind your words for they become your actions; mind your actions for they become your habits; mind your habits for they become your character; watch your character for they become your destiny."

(This was used in the film, The Iron Lady (2011), spoken by Meryl Streep playing Margaret Thatcher, the former Prime Minister.)