Thus James Payn, a popular contemporary novelist, began his review of An Outcast of the Islands for The Illustrated London News in April 1896. Payn goes on to congratulate Conrad for his ability to hold the reader's attention. But the observation that British novel readers are insular is puzzling when we remember Andrew Lang's contention a few years earlier, borne out by sales figures, that exotic literature enjoyed a great popularity (see chapter 1). Of course, as an admirer of “Henley's Regatta,” Lang opposed the Grundyism abroad, a powerful faction that in the 1890s found the domestic fiction to be more respectable and uplifting, dealing as it did with far less objectionable matters than did the exotic fiction Lang championed. However, this reviewer must have noticed that the News itself ran serially much of the adventure fiction and travel writing of the day, contained numerous articles about colonial possessions, usually elaborately illustrated, and reviewed and recommended books on related subjects frequently. That he nonetheless found Conrad's work “exceptional” suggests the contemporary resistance, already mentioned in chapter 4, to the popular adventure genre.