Italian fiction also suffers from neglect at the hands of the _Britannica’s_ critics. Giulio Barrili receives only thirteen lines; Farina, only nine lines; and Giovanni Verga, only twelve. Fogazzaro draws twenty-six lines; and in the biography we learn that his “deeply religious spirit” animates his literary productions, and that he contributed to modern Italian literature “wholesome elements of which it would otherwise be nearly destitute.” He also was “Wordsworthian” in his simplicity and pathos. Amicis and Serao draw twenty-nine lines and half a column respectively; but there are no biographies of Emilio de Marchi, the prominent historical novelist; Enrico Butti, one of the foremost representatives of the psychological novel in modern Italy; and Grazia Deledda. The neglect of modern German writers in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ is more glaring than that of any other European nation, not excluding Russia. So little information can one get from this encyclopædia concerning the really important German authors that it would hardly repay one to go to the _Britannica_. Eckstein—five of whose novels were issued in English before 1890—is denied a biography. So is Meinhold; so is Luise Mühlbach; so is Wachenroder;—all well known in England long before the _Britannica_ went to press. Even Gabriele Reuter, whose far-reaching success came as long ago as 1895, is without a biography. And—what is less excusable—Max Kretzer, the first of Germany’s naturalistic novelists, has no biographical mention in this great English encyclopædia! But the omission of even these important names do not represent the _Britannica’s_ greatest injustice to Germany’s literature; for one will seek in vain for biographies of Wilhelm von Polenz and Ompteda, two of the foremost German novelists, whose work marked a distinct step in the development of their nation’s letters. Furthermore, Clara Viebig, Gustav Frenssen, and Thomas Mann, who are among the truly great figures in modern imaginative literature, are without biographies. These writers have carried the German novel to extraordinary heights. Mann’s _Buddenbrooks_ (1901) represents the culmination of the naturalistic novel in Germany; and Viebig and Frenssen are of scarcely less importance. There are few modern English novelists as deserving as these three Germans; and yet numerous comparatively insignificant English writers are given long critical biographies in the _Britannica_ while Viebig, Frenssen and Mann receive no biographies whatever! Such unjust discrimination against non-British authors would hardly be compatible with even the narrowest scholarship. And there are other important and eminent German novelists who are far more deserving of space in an international encyclopædia than many of the Englishmen who receive biographies in the _Britannica_—for instance, Heinz Tovote, Hermann Hesse, Ricarda Huch, Helene Böhlau, and Eduard von Keyserling—not one of whom is given biographical consideration!