Complete Short Works of George Meredith.

George Meredith is one of the Victorian age's most distinctive voices, admired by fellow writers for a style so dense with wit and observation that it rewards slow reading. This collection gathers his shorter works, offering a way into that world without committing to the sweep of his great novels.

What it's about

The volume brings together Meredith's short fiction, the tales and shorter narratives that sit alongside the large novels for which he is best remembered. Across these pieces he turns his attention to character and comedy, to the manners of his society and the inner lives beneath them, with the same searching intelligence that shaped his longer books. For readers coming to Meredith for the first time, they serve as an accessible introduction; for admirers, they round out the picture of a remarkable career.

Themes

Meredith's abiding subjects run through this work: the comedy of self-deception, the tension between passion and social convention, and the fine gradations of feeling that separate what people say from what they mean. He is a keen anatomist of pride and folly, and an early, sympathetic observer of women's independence of mind. His prose asks something of the reader, favouring suggestion over statement, irony over ease, and repays the effort with unusual richness.

Why it still matters

Meredith fell somewhat out of fashion after his lifetime, yet his influence on the modern novel, and his insistence that fiction dramatise the mind as much as the world, keeps him worth reading. His shorter works make his distinctive gifts available in a more compact form, ideal for readers curious to discover why writers of his own and later generations held him in such regard.

Who it's for

For lovers of Victorian literature, for readers who prize style and psychological subtlety, and for anyone wanting to sample a major novelist through his shorter fiction. Those willing to read attentively will find Meredith an unusually rewarding companion.