The Great Tradition

The Great Tradition is a book of literary criticism written by F R Leavis, published in 1948 by Chatto & Windus.

In his work, Leavis names Jane Austen, George Eliot, Henry James, and Joseph Conrad as the great English novelists.

In all these eight, including Charles Dickens, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and Edgar Allan Poe, we have successors of Shakespeare.

Leavis disparaged Dickens except for his novel Hard Times, as lacking the "mature standards and interests" found in the works of Henry James.

But the genius was that of a great entertainer, and he had for the most part no profounder responsibility as a creative artist than this description suggests."