Classic Books Reviewed in The Atlantic

So far I'm only up to Leaves of Grass, but I'm struck by the prose style of the earlier reviewers. Even the most pompous and pedantic of today's book reviewers would never write like this:

But multitudinousness cannot make the spectacle of his morbidness any more acceptable. It cannot palliate the gross impropriety of which he is guilty, in publishing what is unfit for repetition; an impropriety doubled by the retention of this disgusting stuff in a new edition issued after many years, during which the author has had ample opportunity to free himself from his youthful crudities.

though whether this is an indication of the dumbing down of the audience or merely some restraint on the part of overeducated book reviewers is unclear.

They spent half of the review complaining about how the author was paid too much for the book and how the poor publisher had to suffer so much trying to sell it. And then they attack the book for trying to replace the bible (!!!) for being too nice to the poor and unfortunate and being dangerous for the undeveloped minds of ordinary people. And then they say: "The bigotries of virtue are better than the charities of vice." Unfortunately, the author of that review probably did not live to see the second world war and realize how wrong he was about that.