riters whose books
everybody, almost, has read, or has been accustomed to think well of. It
embraces the following popular authors, many of whose novels have had a
wide circulation, and that principally through popular libraries.

Here follow the names:

Mary J. Holmes, Mrs. Henry Wood, C. L. Hentz, M. P. Finley, Mrs. A. S.
Stephens, E. D. E. N. Southworth, Mrs. Forrester, Rhoda Broughton, Helen
Mathers, Jessie Fothergill, M. E. Braddon, Florence Marryat, Ouida,
Horatio Alger, Mayne Reid, Oliver Optic, W. H. S. Kingston, E. Kellogg,
G. W. M. Reynolds, C. Fosdick, Edmund Yates, G. A. Lawrence, Grenville
Murray, W. H. Ainsworth, Wilkie Collins, E. L. Bulwer-Lytton, W. H.
Thomes, and Augusta Evans Wilson.

Bear in mind, that only English and American novels are included, and
those only of the present century: also, that as to many which are
included, no imputation of immorality was made. Such a "black list" is
obviously open to the charge of doing great injustice to the good repute
of writers named, since only a part of the works written by some of them
can properly be objected to, and these are not specially named.
Bulwer-Lytton, for example, whose "Paul Clifford" is a very improper book
to go into the hands of young people, has written at least a dozen other
fictions of noble moral purpose, and high literary merit.

Out of seventy public libraries to which the list was sent, with inquiry
whether the authors named were admitted as books of circulation, thirty
libraries replied. All of them admitted Bulwer-Lytton and Wilkie Collins,
all but two Oliver Optic's books, and all but six Augusta Evans Wilson's.
Reynolds' novels were excluded by twenty libraries, Mrs. Southworth's by
eleven, "Ouida's" by nine, and Mrs. Stephens's and Mrs. Henry Wood's by
eight. Other details cannot find space for notice here.

This instance is one among many of endeavors constantly being made by
associated librarians to stem the ever increasing flood of poor fiction
which threatens to submerge the better class of books in our public
libraries.

That no such wholesome attempt can be wholly successful is evident
enough. The passion for reading fiction is both epidemic and chronic; and
in saying this, do not infer that I reckon it as a disease. A librarian
has no right to banish fiction because the appetite for it is abused. He
is not to set up any ideal and impossible standard of selection. His
most useful and beneficent function is to turn i