Excerpt from George Meredith: Novelist, Poet, ReformerHen at the conclusion of your article on my works you say that a certain change in public taste, should it come about, will be to some extent due to me, you hand me the ¿owering wreath I covet. For I think that all right use of life and the one secret of life, is to pave ways for the firmer footing Of those who succeed us, and as to my works I know them faulty, think them of worth only where they point and aid to that end. Close knowledge of our fellows, discernment of the laws of existence, these lead to great civilisation. I have supposed that the novel exposing and illustrat ing the history of man may help us to such sustaining roadside gifts. These words, from a private letter of George Meredith's to the author of an article in the Harvard Mant/zly, contain the creed on which the whole of his voluminous writing has been based. Imagina tively developed in the Introduction to Diana of ¿u Crossways and elsewhere, it is his plea for a kind of fiction which, in prose and in verse, he may almost be said to have brought into existence.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.