“A BOOK OF ABSORBING INTEREST.”
Hyde Park:
Its History and Romance
The Academy.—“In ‘Hyde Park’ Mrs. Tweedie is triumphantly encamped and any attempt to dislodge her would be quite futile. Her study of an extraordinarily interesting and attractive subject is thoroughly complete, and from first to last most delightfully done. It is a wholly delightful book, and what with the immense interest of the subject, the pleasant writing, and the number of well-chosen pictures, should have a really great success.”
Sunday Sun (The book of the week).—“Mrs. Alec Tweedie’s book is altogether delightful. She is frankly a gossip, and while she includes in her book all that appertains to the Park itself, she can never resist the temptation to tell a good story. No side of life escapes her attention.... In short, a great subject is worthily treated. Lovers of London and lovers of England should be grateful for this memorial of their great playground. Hyde Park may be called a picture book of history, and its history has been written with loving care and no little skill.”
Pall Mall.—“Mrs. Alec Tweedie is a capital stage manager of this wonderful play, bright, cheery, and always entertaining. She has saturated herself with the atmosphere of each period, and each character, good, bad, and indifferent, stands before us with wonderful reality.... To watch them is to realise how important Hyde Park is to our gregarious metropolis; and if distance intervenes and exiles you, you may still be transported thither on the magic carpet of Mrs. Tweedie’s most engrossing pages.”
The Nation.—“As delectable to the sociable as it is puzzling to the misanthropic, Hyde Park represents the same spirit of serious trifling and enforced idleness as in the days when it first became a pleasure ground for the High-World some three centuries ago. These are among the ghosts raised by Mrs. Alec Tweedie’s ‘Hyde Park.’ She devotes considerable space to the painful and gruesome chronicles of Tyburn, and tells an entertaining account of the evolution of the carriage.”