Page:The life and writings of Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) (IA lifewritingsofal00spurrich).pdf/305

 America at least, and that it has served a two-fold purpose. It has, we hope, told the reader something new about the books he knows, and has given him an idea, however slight, of the nature and authenticity of other works by our author of which he has probably never heard. We trust we shall have led him to marvel, as we have marvelled, at the fact that so much which is good, and which is undoubtedly "genuine Dumas," should remain untranslated and almost forgotten. A good dozen of the minor romances have been translated into English and allowed to go out of print. Yet we have shown, we think, that there is plenty of excellent fish in this wide, wide sea which has not as yet been landed on our shores in the net of the translator.

One other point cannot have escaped attention. Our most serious admissions respecting Dumas's integrity have been made in the course of this examination of the authenticity of the various books attributed to him. In the case of collaboration, we declare that Dumas was ever the greater brain, the "predominant partner," and deserves the most credit. But in cases where his name is attached, obviously or confessedly to books untouched by his pen, his responsibility is grave. Yet even here it is well to discriminate between the man who issued the book with a frank disavowal of authorship, and