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 all-important and exigent requirements of "the general reader."

Kennaston turned to the publishers' advertisements. Dapley & Pildriff at that time were urging every one to read White Sepulchers, the author of which had made public the momentous discovery that all churchgoers were not immaculate persons. Paige Ticknor's Sons were announcing a new edition of The Apostates, a scathing arraignment of plutocratic iniquities, which was heralded as certain to sear the soul to its core, more than rival Thackeray, and turn our highest social circles inside out. Then the Gayvery Company offered Through the Transom, a daring study of "feminism," compiled to all appearance under rather novel conditions, inasmuch as the brilliant young author had, according to the advertisements, written every sentence with his jaws set and his soul on fire. The majority of Leeds, McKibble & Todd's adjectives were devoted to Sarah's Secret, the prize-winner in the firm's $15,000 contest—a "sprightly romance of the greenwood," whose undoubted aim, Kennaston deduced from tentative dips into its mean