Thackeray 1811 1844-1862 1863
Dickens 1812 1837-1870 1870
Reade 1814 1853-1884 1884
Trollope 1815 1855-1880 1882
Brontë 1816 1847-1853 1855
Kingsley 1819 1848-1871 1875
Eliot 1819 1859-1876 1880
Meredith 1828 1859-1895 1909
Butler 1835 1872-1901 1902
This list, reaching from Scott to Hardy, not inclusive, has been reckoned as a round dozen, but it actually numbers a baker's dozen.[1] The noteworthy thing about it is that it would probably be agreed upon as the preëminent list on any count; so that those who are excluded on the score of being too consistently serious or romantic, as Yonge, Collins, Blackmore, Henry Kingsley, MacDonald, would hardly be included on the score of quality, although some of them might rival some of the least among those chosen as members of the satirico-realistic group.
A glance at the preceding table reveals an obvious chronological division into five parts; although the first and the two last consist of one man each. The second contains only two names; and their separation from the main group occurs at the beginning rather than at the end, for Lytton's race ran beyond five of those who started
- ↑ If it were desirable to eliminate the thirteenth chair, it might be done in a number of ways. Peacock might be ruled out as a contemporary of the earlier generation, as Gryll Grange is all that carries him over. Butler on the other hand belongs to the later, except that Erewhon appeared in the year of Middlemarch. As a satirist, Brontë is so near the edge of the circle that her inclusion at all is questionable. Since it happens, however, that the year of her death coincides with that of Reade's first novel, we might fancy her yielding a place to him, so that there were never more than twelve at one time.
