99. Essays In Criticism. | By | Matthew Arnold, | Professor Of Poetry In The University Of Oxford. | London and Cambridge: Macmillan And Co. | 1865.
The first edition contained a satirical and not altogether tasteful preface which, Arnold said in a letter to his mother before the book was out, "will make you laugh." But later, in a letter to Lady de Rothschild written February 11, 1865, he says of it: "I had read the Preface to a brother and sister of mine, and they received it in such solemn silence that I began to tremble...." The silence of his friends and the criticism of others produced their effect upon him, and he writes again, to Lady de Rothschild: "I think if I republish the book I shall leave out some of the preface and notes, as being too much of mere temporary matter ..."
The volume contained nine essays, afterward made ten.
Professor Saintsbury says, in reviewing the book:
"I am afraid it must be taken as only too strong a confirmation of Mr. Arnold's belief as to the indifference of the English people to criticism that no second edition of the book was called for till four years were past, no third for ten, and no fourth for nearly twenty."
We get an intimation of the terms on which the book was published from the following note to Miss Quillinan, dated March 8, 1865:
"The book is Macmillan's, not mine, as my Poems were, and I have had so few copies at my own disposal that they have not even sufficed to go the round of my own nearest relations, to whom I have always been accustomed to send what I write."
Octavo.
Collation: xx, 302 pp.