brother Algernon that Meredith's novels were "of the superlatively tough species". His contemporary Sir Arthur Conan Doyle paid tribute to him in the short story "The Boscombe Valley Mystery", in which Sherlock Holmes says to Dr. Watson, during the discussion of the case, "And now let us talk about George Meredith, if you please, and we shall leave all minor matters until to-morrow." Oscar Wilde in "The Art of Novel-Writing" reflected, "Ah, Meredith! Who can define him? ... As a writer he has mastered everything, except language ... Too strange to be popular, too individual to have imitators, ... [he] stands absolutely alone." In 1868 Meredith was introduced to Thomas Hardy by Frederic Chapman of Chapman & Hall. Hardy had submitted his first novel, The Poor Man and the Lady. Meredith advised Hardy not to publish his book as it would be attacked by reviewers and destroy his hopes of becoming a novelist. Meredith felt the book was too bitter a satire on the rich, and counselled Hardy to put it aside and write another "with a purely artistic purpose" and more of a plot. Meredith spoke from experience; his own first big novel, The Ordeal of Richard Feverel, was judged so shocking that Mudie's circulating library had cancelled an order of 300 copies. Hardy continued in his attempts to publish the novel, without success, though he clearly took Meredith's advice seriously. His books were translated into Japanese and influenced author Natsume Sōseki. Politics Meredith's politics were those of a Radical Liberal, and he was friends with other Radicals such as Frederick Maxse, whom he met around 1860, and John Morley, whom he first encountered in print, as the Literary Gazettes enraptured reviewer of Evan Harrington. Another politically active friend was W. T. Stead, who replaced Morley as editor of The Pall Mall Gazette and was renowned for his campaigning journalism, in particular a crusade against child prostitution. Stead shared with Meredith an aversion to war, a loathing of the "foul fury of Jingoism" and "jingo-Imperialism" periodically evident in the British press, a hostility to the Russophobia then prevalent in Britain, and an appetite for greater democracy. Later life Beginning in the 1880s, Meredith's interest in writing poetry intensified again, and he was of the opinion that his poems would prove more durable than his prose. In 1883 he published Poems and Lyrics of the Joy of Earth, which contained