When we come to the American literary division of the _Britannica_, however, prejudice and neglect reach their highest point. Never have I seen a better example of the contemptuous attitude of England toward American literature than in the Encyclopædia’s treatment of the novelists of the United States. William Dean Howells, in a three-quarters-of-a-column biography, gets scant praise and is criticised with not a little condescension. F. Marion Crawford, in an even shorter biography, receives only lukewarm and apologetic praise. Frank Norris is accorded only twenty lines, less space than is given the English hack, G. A. Henty! _McTeague_ is “a story of the San Francisco slums”; and _The Octopus_ and _The Pit_ are “powerful stories.” This is the extent of the criticism. Stephen Crane is given twelve lines; Bret Harte, half a column with little criticism; Charles Brockden Brown and Lafcadio Hearn, two-thirds of a column each; H. C. Bunner, twenty-one lines; and Thomas Nelson Page less than half a column.
What there is in Mark Twain’s biography is written by Brander Matthews and is fair as far as it goes. The one recent American novelist who is given adequate praise is Henry James; and this may be accounted for by the fact of James’s adoption of England as his home. The only other adequate biography of an American author is that of Nathaniel Hawthorne. But the few biographies of other United States writers who are included in the Encyclopædia are very brief and insufficient.
In the omissions of American writers, British prejudice has overstepped all bounds of common justice. In the following list of names _only one_ (Churchill’s) _is even mentioned in the entire Encyclopædia_: Edith Wharton, David Graham Phillips, Gertrude Atherton, Winston Churchill, Owen Wister, Ambrose Bierce, Theodore Dreiser, Margaret Deland, Jack London, Robert Grant, Ellen Glasgow, Booth Tarkington, Alice Brown and Robert Herrick. And yet there is abundant space in the _Britannica_, not only for critical mention, but for _detailed biographies_, of such English writers as Hall Caine, Rider Haggard, Maurice Hewlett, Stanley Weyman, Flora Annie Steel, Edna Lyall, Elizabeth Charles, Annie Keary, Eliza Linton, Mrs. Henry Wood, Pett Ridge, W. C. Russell, and still others of less consequence than many of the American authors omitted.