Through the great interest felt by Englishmen in the manners and customs of Eastern nations, Oriental novels have become a recognized department of English fiction. In the eighteenth century, Johnson, in "Rasselas," and Beckford, in "Vathek," had drawn on the romantic features of Eastern life. In the present century successful attempts have been made to study Oriental character through the medium of the realistic novel. Hope, in "Anastasius," described the vices and degradation of Turkey and Greece in the person of his hero. In James Morier's "Hajji Baba of Ispahan" and "Ayesha," are vivid delineations of Eastern character and highly humorous sketches of Persian life. James Baillie Fraser, in "The Kuzzilbash," and Miss Pardoe in a number of tales, have still further enriched the department of Oriental fiction.
[Footnote 206: Other women who have contributed to the English domestic novel--. Mary K. Mitford, Mrs. Crowe, Mrs. Marsh, Lady Georgiana Fullerton, Miss Kavanaugh, Geraldine Jewsbury, Mrs. Alexander, S. Bunbury, C. Sinclair, A. Strickland, M.C. Clarke, L.S. Costello, C. Crowe, A.H. Drury, G. Ellis, M. Howitt, Mrs. Hubback, Hon. Mrs. Norton, M.A. Power, E. Sewell, Mrs. Marquoid, Hesba Stretton, Florence Marryat, Elizabeth Wetherell, Sarah Tytler, C.C. Fraser-Tytler, C. Craik, Hon. Mrs. Chetwind, M.M. Grant, A.E. Bray, and others.]
[Footnote 208: Many other well-known writers have contributed to the English domestic novel: Thomas Love Peacock, H. Coke, Samuel Philips, Angus B. Reach, Albert Smith, R. Cobbold, Edmund Yates, Thomas A. Trollope, Thomas Hardy, James Payn, George Augustus Sala, William Thornbury, the author of "The Bachelor of the Albany," Mortimer Collins, G.H. Lewes, Shirley Brooks, Douglas Jerrold, C. Crowley, T. de Quincey, S.W. Fullom, J. Hannay, W. Howitt, C. Mackay, G.J. Whyte-Melville, T. Miller, L. Ritchie, F.E. Smedley, J.A. St. John, M.F. Tupper, F.M. Whitly, F. Williams, C.L. Wraxall, and others.]
[Footnote 209: T.H. Lister, Marquis of Normanby, Lady Caroline Lamb, Countess of Morley, Lady Charlotte Bury, Lady Dacre, Mrs. Gore, Lady Blessington.]
James Fenimore Cooper said in regard to the materials for American fiction: "There is a familiarity of the subject, a scarcity of events, and a poverty in the accompaniments that drive an author from the undertaking in despair." But the truth of this statement has been greatly modified, if not quite refuted, by the work of that great novelist and of several others who have succeeded him. It is true that American life presents less salient characteristics than that of Europe; that class distinctions are less marked; and that the energies of the nation are still so much confined to strictly utilitarian objects, that life moves along with unpicturesque sameness and evenness. But mankind remains equally complicated and equally interesting under whatever circumstances it may be placed. The vast extent of American territory and the infinite variety of its inhabitants afford material to the novelist which yet remains almost untouched. New England, New York, the Southern States, and, above all, the Great West, are rich in special customs, traditions, and habits of thought with which fiction has only begun to concern itself. The visitor to Washington cannot fail to be struck by the variety of men who jostle each other in that cosmopolitan city. The New England farmer, the New York banker, the Southern planter, the Western herder or grain merchant, the California mine-owner, the negro, and perhaps a stray visiting Indian chief, represent widely differing and highly interesting forms of life and opinion. Whenever native genius has cast aside foreign influence and has found inspiration in American traditions and institutions, the extent and richness of its literary material have been made manifest.