SOURCE: "Charles Reade and The Cloister and the Hearth: A Survey of the Novel's Literary Reception and Its Historic Fidelity," in Unisa English Studies, Vol. IX, No. 1, March, 1971, pp. 18-26.

In the following excerpt, Muller explores the reasons for the popularity of The Cloister and the Hearth.

I

Numerous reasons can be put forward to explain why nineteenth-century critics declined to place Charles Reade in the foremost rank of novelists; but there are three main and obvious reasons: his polemical purpose was frequently injurious to, and incompatible with, his artistic purpose, his reliance on documentary sources like law reports and prison blue-books persuaded critics that he lacked true imagination, or genius, and his invective spirit, apart from damaging his art, made enemies of numerous critics. Never too late to Mend—the most characteristic of Reade's didactic works—was one of the most popular novels of the Victorian era...