“ His novels are not works of enduring interest, but they are saved from mediocrity by frequent passages of racy narrative and vivid portraiture. The best are Maxwell (1830) , Love and Pride (1833) , the autobiographic Gilbert Gurney (1836) , Jack Brag (1837) , Gurney Married (1838) , and Peregrine Bunce (1842) . Incessant work had already begun to tell on his health, when Hook returned to his old social habits, and a prolonged attempt to combine industry and dissipation resulted in the confession that he was “done up in purse, in mind and in body too at last.” ”

“ At the age of sixteen, in conjunction with his father, he scored a dramatic success with The Soldier’s Return, a comic opera, and this he rapidly followed up with a series of over a dozen sparkling ventures, the instant popularity of which was hardly dependent on the inimitable acting of John Liston and Charles Mathews. ”