Mrs. Humphry Ward, born Mary Augusta Arnold, won worldwide recognition with the publication of Robert Elsmere (1888), which dramatized for countless readers the loss of faith in orthodox Christianity...
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Critical Essay by Introduciion
Ward was a popular and prolific novelist who is closely identified with the Victorian era in English life and literature. In her numerous novels she examined the social ...
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Critical Essay by The Bookman (london) (essay Date 1892)
[The following excerpt assesses Ward's works from her early essays to the publication of The History of David Grieve.]
[Mrs. Ward'...
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Critical Essay by Lionel Johnson (essay Date 1894)
[In the following excerpt, originally published in The Academy in 1894, Johnson reviews Marcella.]
That Marcella is a good novel, and a very much bet...
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Critical Essay by A. St. John Adcock (essay Date 1903)
[An English author whose works often concern the city of London, Adcock served as editor of the London Bookman from 1923 until his death in 1930....
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Critical Essay by William Lyon Phelps (essay Date 1910)
[In the following excerpt, Phelps challenges Ward's high literary reputation.]
It is high time that somebody spoke out his mind about Mrs...
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Critical Essay by Arnold Bennett (essay Date 1908)
[Bennett was an Edwardian novelist who is credited with bringing techniques of European Naturalism to the English novel. He is best known as the auth...
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Critical Essay by Herbert L. Stewart (essay Date 1920)
[In the following excerpt, Stewart examines Ward's theological novels.]
There are few of [Mrs Ward's] books from which the religiou...
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Critical Essay by Edward Wagenknecht (essay Date 1943)
[In the following excerpt, Wagenknecht characterizes Ward's works as typifying conservative Victorian tastes in literature.]
Life is alway...
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Critical Essay by Vineta Colby (essay Date 1970)
[Colby is an American educator and critic who has written several studies of Victorian literature. In the following excerpt, she examines the appeal of...
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Critical Essay by William S. Peterson (essay Date 1976)
[Peterson is an American educator and critic who has written extensively about the poet Robert Browning. In the following excerpt, Peterson offe...
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Critical Essay by Mildred L. Culp (essay Date 1982)
[In the following excerpt, Culp considers the relationship between the artistic and the ideological in Robert Elsmere.]
Two recent studies of the Vi...
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Critical Essay by Biographical Information
Ward was the granddaughter of Thomas Arnold, the influential headmaster of Rugby School, and the niece of the poet and essayist Matthew Arnold. Her father, a...
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Critical Essay by J. E. Sait (essay Date 1988)
[In the following excerpt, Sait discusses Ward's works of the First World War era.]
Undoubtedly the Great War was recognised as the Great Subject ...
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Critical Essay by Biography
Jones, Enid Huws. Mrs. Humphry Ward. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1973, 180 p.
Appreciative biography. According to Jones, "Ward's life is not so much...
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Critical Essay by Major Works
Ward's works largely comprise moralistic considerations of various issues that engaged Victorian society. Her most famous novel, Robert Elsmere, details the theolo...
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Critical Essay by Critical Reception
Robert Elsmere created a sensation following a review by former prime minister William Gladstone in 1888, and Ward subsequently enjoyed great popular success. Vict...
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Critical Essay by Principal Works
Miss Bretherton (novel) 1884
Robert Elsmere (novel) 1888
The History of David Grieve (novel) 1892
Marcella (novel) 1894
The Story of Bessie Costrell (novel) 1895
Sir ...
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Critical Essay by W. E. Gladstone (essay Date 1888)
[Gladstone was a prominent English statesman and author who served four times as Prime Minister and wrote numerous learned essays on such diverse su...
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Critical Essay by Walter Pater (essay Date 1888)
[In the following excerpt, originally published in The Guardian in 1888, Pater praises characterization in Robert Elsmere but questions the validity of...
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Critical Essay by Oscar Wilde on Robert Elsmere:
Robert Elsmere is of course a masterpiece—a masterpiece of the 'genre ennuyeux,' the one form of literature that the English peopl...
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Mrs. Humphry Ward
