Various

“ W. M. Payne.
“As a study of South American revolution the book is a monument of realism. There is ever present a psychological question, a moral issue that is as modern as Ibsen.”
“The love element is slight and in its development irregular, and the adventurous element is not absorbing. The stream of the story is always slender. It glimmers and shimmers most poetically—what there is of it—but even at its broadest and strongest it gives no hint of bearing the reader along with it, and again and again it sinks wholly out of sight amid the silver sands of picturesque description.” ”

“ The young artist, Leonard Morris, wakes all the slumbering fires of her nature, she is gloriously happy and her poems sing of it; when she finds that he fails to understand her, her publisher is the first to detect it in the new note of her work. It is a single hearted story of loyalty to love and to work. There are some good minor characters, her commonplace and ungenial family are drawn with pathetic humor. ”

“ A book of booty gathered in the woods, quaint myths and fables, some of which are of Indian origin, while some have been whispered to the wood lover author-artist by Mother Nature herself. He has pointed them with clever morals, and illustrated them with dainty drawings. It is a book to pick up in odd moments, for in its prose and rime one can find beauty, sympathy, humor, and clever satire; and young folks can learn something of the discontented giraffe, the unmannerly porcupine, the stubborn land-crab, and other animals with human frailties. ”

“ He has the art of telling a story, of putting each incident, rightly proportioned, in its proper place, of making his characters speak for themselves and justify their existence.”
“It is not often that a lesson of serious import is conveyed in fiction with such delicacy of style, charm of humour, and literary effectiveness as here.”
“Bricks of humor, satire, pathos, a couple of tragedy keystones, and all these joined with the mortar of realism into a magnificent edifice, built upon the rocks of cleverness.” ”

“ A style full of terse, vigorous phrases, at times enlivened by humor, and again and again shot through with illuminating allusions revealing the breadth of culture, the fund of reading upon which the scholar can draw at will. ”

“ It is a good book to be read at a single sitting, like a good novel. To say that it is interesting, well written, and appropriate to the times, is to offer it the merest justice; but to describe it as a complete success is perhaps going too far. ”

“ With a sense of honor almost too keen for the world in which he lives, he struggles on as journalist and poet until he reaches success, fame and his ideals. The book is unusual in its strength of plot and character, and it is most real when it forsakes the ideal and tells us that even the divine fire cannot shut out the coarser cravings of a man’s nature when he is young, a genius half-awake.
“Has an acceptable style, in all ways suited to the matter it embodies, a style with flexibility and humor employing a large vocabulary, cultivated and agreeable. ”

“ The life of Bach, contrary to most artists’ careers, manifests no repression of spontaneous, all-around development. “He was an affectionate father, laboring manfully and incessantly to support a large family; a good citizen ... a musician without an equal in the profundity of his knowledge and the richness of his productions; the founder of modern music, the master of the organ, a composer of the highest forms of sacred music; a plain humble man.” This view of the man fills the volume which belongs to “Life stories for young people.” ”

“ Phillpotts’s strongest story. A tragedy as grim and inexorable as any ever told by ancient Greek. He knows his Devon peasants, and it is with humility that we enter one or two protests against his portrayal. One may wish the theme less painful, our keen joy in the perfection of literary workmanship less marred by the continual constriction of heart to which the author compels us. It is not only its author’s masterpiece, but it is far in advance of anything he has yet written—and that is to give it higher praise than almost any other comparison with contemporary fiction could afford. ”

“ Healy’s work may be briefly indicated by saying that, while it satisfies the exacting standards to which the modern writer of history must conform, it will not fail to fascinate the intelligent reader who takes up a book of history, not for severe study, but partly for instruction, partly for entertainment. Clear alike by its methodic arrangement and its simple style, lively and vivid without falling into the rhetorical, the narrative flows smoothly on, and, though abounding in detail, never becomes tedious or monotonous. ”

“ The lady Penelope Brading, orphaned daughter of an English earl and an American heiress, is a young woman of ideas, and ideals. From a host of suitors, and there are many as she possesses all things save a sense of humor, she chooses eight; a poet, a captain, a successful Jew, a young nobleman, a war correspondent, a balloonist, an artist, and an American millionaire, and puts them in training, finally announcing that she has married one of them secretly. Each pretends to be the one and the reader is thoroly mystified even when a baby arrives to further complicate the situation. ”

“ She set out to reflect life in a small, old-fashioned Scotch town and its environs, and she has succeeded in masterly fashion. She has given us a delightful comedy of manners written in a style remarkable for power, simplicity and grasp. Out of the ruck of cheap fiction this book rises to real, permanent value. It is not only worth reading, it is worth a place on the book-shelf. ”

“ As an expression of the personality of Henry Sidgwick the collection has interest and value; as an embodiment of the Cambridge spirit it has enduring significance for all who care about tracing intellectual tendencies. The expression throughout is accurate; nothing is said more or less than is intended. The style is lucid, subtle, stimulating, never unpleasant, now and again humorous; never brilliant, persuasive, or charming. Stronger in criticism than construction. ”

“ In ‘The white terror and the red’ we have something far more interesting than a narrative of sensational episodes, or a gallery of interesting types, more valuable than a vivid picture of melodramatic history in the making. We have a work of art of the highest class. ”

“ One page amuses by its originality of conception and expression, the next provokes by its insecurity of argument, the third charms by its suggestiveness. It is a book to be relished, not as a whole, but in snatches. ”

“ Printed in dark green ink with green marginal decorations and a touch of red in the headings, this attractive little volume pleases the eye, while the catch words culled from St. Paul, Cicero, Maeterlinck, Carlyle, Tennyson, Shakespeare, Helen Keller, Ruskin, Goethe, Longfellow, and a host of other writers of all ages, are wisely chosen to bring help and comfort. There is a quotation for each day of the year. ”

“ It is clever in conception and treatment, it holds the interest.”
“Granted its fundamental improbability, the plot is skilfully constructed, and the interest of the story is successfully maintained.”
“As a detective story, ‘The millionaire baby,’ is as clever as anything Anna Katharine Green has written. You will not lay it aside until you know the whole story.”
“As a detective story it is ingenious; as fiction in any other sense it is worthless.” ”

“ The story though powerful and quite out of the ordinary lines of romance, is not a novel that we can heartily recommend to the general reader.” Amy C. Rich.
“Thus the story becomes essentially an account of the development of character under extraordinary conditions, and its aspect as a narrative of adventure is obscured by its aspect as a psychological study. It is not a pleasant tale to read—it is too strongly seasoned to be that,—but it acquires a certain fascination in the course of its telling, and fairly grips the attention in its culminating passages.” ”

“ Noble attracts immediate attention yet does not shout; he gives us exciting situations, yet leaves something to the imagination. Mr. Noble is too much of an artist to overload his picture.”
* “In ‘The edge of circumstance’ Mr. Noble has created a book with the qualities of a masterpiece. The portrait of the derelict alone will go down as a wonder of sincere portrayal. The poetry of the things is here plain, founded on a knowledge sharper than fancy.”
“It is a rarely good—even a great—book in some respects, and it seems destined to take high rank in the sea literature of its class.” ”

“ Miss Betham-Edwards’ first hand knowledge of French family and school life has been the outgrowth of years of service as an officer of public instruction. This insight tempers her treatment with sympathy and enthusiasm. She describes every phase of life from the home-keeping which is “the glorification of simplicity,” to the city keeping which is presided over by “indefatigable workers to whom fireside joys and intellectual pleasure are especially dear, and to whom self-abnegation ... becomes a second nature.” ”

“ A romance full of interest and charm.”
“There is a group of figures of excellent variety and of the best sort of originality, self-stamped as made up of discovery and sympathetic interpretation. The story is perfectly fitted into the strange, wild surroundings.”
“As an organic, thoroughly-developed novel, it is a failure.”
“A novel of unusually high merit. But Mr. Duncan has not only a new field to exploit, he has style. The swift yet long and undulating sentences move with a distinctive rhythm that is as fresh as it is new. They tell a strong, beautiful love story. ”

“ The strength of the story is embodied in the princess’ determination to win back the love of her husband, “which she vows must be as complete and perfect as the original crystal of the broken bowl, that picturesque property of the story that takes so unique a part in the development of the plot.” (Reader) .
“The intellectuality overpowers the sensuous and objective traits proper to a novel, until one has the impression of reading an abstruse treatise of psychology rather than a tale. Despite exasperations of detail, the novel in the main is masterly. ”

“ Lilian Whiting weaves a charm into the living drama that was set in the scenic enchantment of Florence during the period of Walter Savage Landor. She draws the Florence still vital with color, the romance, the tragedy and passionate exaltation and despair of the fifteenth century, and shows the sympathetic common interests of the English and American colony including permanently the Brownings and the Trollopes, and welcoming as visitors from time to time, George Eliot, Frances Power Cobbe, Frederick Tennyson and a number of the Brook farm men and women. ”

“ World.
“The book is written for the ordinary reader of the Bible, is unencumbered by erudite notes, is written in a clear and attractive style, and can be strongly recommended to the untechnical reader, who desires to learn how critical study affects the early books of the Bible. The book throughout bears evidence of wide reading. The marvel is that in such a work, where evidence is often scanty and much has to be supplied from analogies often remote, one finds so little from which to dissent. The work merits high praise and deserves a wide recognition.” ”

“ Any veteran might well be glad and proud to round off even the achievement of a lifetime with a study of human nature such as this story of Mr. Stewart’s ‘Blacksmith’ so interesting in fresh and unexpected ways, so rich in the fruits of keen and kindly observation, and the true artist’s appreciation of much that escapes the untrained eye. ”

“ The author takes Ben Blair, of worse than unknown parentage, starts him along that well trodden road in fiction—Western ranch life, then makes of him a real hero, true to his ideals, a supporter of law and order, a staunch friend, a dauntless lover, and he places this Dakota plowman in triumphant contrast to a New York clubman. While the situations are not new in type, they are certainly new in treatment and strongly handled, and one regrets that the book did not appear sooner, before the constant march of Western writers had won its ground away. ”

“ These are among the most important and interesting contributions to our historical literature. They are hardly entitled to be called brilliant, but they are full of good sense, of sound judgments, and of well-proportioned groupings of facts. They are likely to be read as long as any historical writings of our time. His style is not brilliant, but it is a good working style, with the fundamental merits of clearness and dignity; and his judgments are the judgments of a man of great common sense. ”

“ Miss Braddon must be congratulated on having described a real human being in her new novel. Daniel Lester, the poet, to whom the reader is introduced in the very first line, is a remarkable creation, and a creation which would only have been possible in the present day.... Indeed, readers of the book will almost be persuaded that they are familiar with his personal appearance, so intimately will they seem acquainted with the huge man whose delicate tact, colossal selfishness, unfailing amiability, and atrocious greed make him such an amusing companion.... ”

“ It treats the Old Testament as not only a literary, but a moral unit. This is really the essence of the inadequacy and untimeliness of the book. The fact is that these lectures must be repudiated by biblical science in as far as they fail to indicate Israel’s progress in religious thought and make the Old Testament literature an illustration either of the New Testament teaching of our modern creeds. They must also be disowned by the ‘higher criticism,’ of which Mr. Davidson was more or less an exponent, because they fail to apply an ethical test to religious belief. ”