The Life and Achievements of Edward Henry Palmer

Abstract

THE tragedy of Palmer's death gives his biographer the right to look to a wider circle of readers than would in ordinary cases feel interest in the life of an Oriental scholar and explorer. Mr. Besant has used his opportunity with the skill of an accomplished story-teller. Those who have dipped into the author's imaginative works will quickly recognise the familiar methods of art by which the reader's interest is sustained and carried on, the whole narrative disposed so as to lead up to the final catastrophe, and the figure of the hero invested even from childhood with something of an unearthly glamour. This method of treatment is a little disappointing to those who do not need to have their interest in Palmer stimulated, but only wish to learn as much about him and his work as possible; but it is fair to remember on the one hand that Mr. Besant is no Orientalist, and so naturally looks at Palmer's linguistic achievements through a mysterious haze, the effect of which is very artistically imparted to the reader's mind, and on the other hand that the exceptional nature of Palmer's powers, and the exceptional course of education in which these powers found their fitting development, are really calculated to stir the sentiment of wonder which the biographer has chosen to make the keynote of his book.

The Life and Achievements of Edward Henry Palmer.

By Walter Besant (London: Murray, 1883.)