The Times.—‘With the exception of The Scapegoat, this is unquestionably the finest and most dramatic of Mr. Hall Caine’s novels ... The Manxman goes very straight to the roots of human passion and emotion. It is a remarkable book, throbbing with human interest.’
The Guardian.—‘A story of exceptional power and thorough originality. The greater portion of it is like a Greek tragic drama, in the intensity of its interest, and the depth of its overshadowing gloom.... But this tragedy is merely a telling background for a series of brilliant sketches of men and manners, of old-world customs, and forgotten ways of speech which still linger in the Isle of Man.’
The Standard.—‘A singularly powerful and picturesque piece of work, extraordinarily dramatic.... Taken altogether, The Manxman cannot fail to enhance Mr. Hall Caine’s reputation. It is a most powerful book.’
The Morning Post.—‘If possible, Mr. Hall Caine’s work, The Manxman, is more marked by passion, power, and brilliant local colouring than its predecessors.... It has a grandeur as well as strength, and the picturesque features and customs of a delightful country are vividly painted.’
The World.—‘Over and above the absorbing interest of the story, which never flags, the book is full of strength, of vivid character sketches, and powerful word-painting, all told with a force and knowledge of local colour.’
The Queen.—‘The Manxman is undoubtedly one of the most remarkable books of the century. It will be read and re-read, and take its place in the literary inheritance of the English-speaking nations.’
The St. James’s Gazette.—‘The Manxman is a contribution to literature, and the most fastidious critic would give in exchange for it a wilderness of that deciduous trash which our publishers call fiction.... It is not possible to part from The Manxman with anything but a warm tribute of approval.’—Edmund Gosse.
The Christian World.—‘There is a great fascination in being present, as it were, at the birth of a classic; and a classic undoubtedly The Manxman is... He who reads The Manxman feels that he is reading a book which will be read and re-read by very many thousands with human tears and human laughter.’
Mr. T. P. O’Connor, in the ‘Sun.’—‘This is a very fine and great story—one of the finest and greatest of our time.... Mr. Hall Caine reaches heights which are attained only by the greatest masters of fiction.... I think of the great French writer, Stendhal, at the same moment as the great English writer.... In short, you feel what Mr. Howells said of Tolstoi, “This is not like life; it is life.”... He belongs to that small minority of the Great Elect of Literature.’
The Scotsman.—‘It is not too much to say that it is the most powerful story that has been written in the present generation.... The love of Pete, his simple-mindedness, his sufferings when he has lost Kate, are painted with a master-hand.... It is a work of genius.’
Mr. Gladstone.—‘The Bondman is a work of which I recognise the freshness, vigour, and sustained interest, no less than its integrity of aim.’
The Times.—‘It is impossible to deny originality and rude power to this saga, impossible not to admire its forceful directness, and the colossal grandeur of its leading characters.’
The Academy.—‘The language of The Bondman is full of nervous, graphic, and poetical English; its interest never flags, and its situations and descriptions are magnificent. It is a splendid novel.’
The Speaker.—‘This is the best book that Mr. Hall Caine has yet written, and it reaches a level to which fiction very rarely attains.... We are, in fact so loth to let such good work be degraded by the title of “novel” that we are almost tempted to consider its claim to rank as a prose epic.’
The Scotsman.—‘Mr. Hall Caine has in this work placed himself beyond the front rank of the novelists of the day. He has produced a story which, for the ingenuity of its plot, for its literary excellence, for its delineations of human passions, and for its intensely powerful dramatic scenes, is distinctly ahead of all the fictional literature of our time, and fit to rank with the most powerful fictional writing of the past century.’
The Athenæum.—‘Crowded with incidents.’
The Observer.—‘Many of the descriptions are picturesque and powerful.... As fine in their way as anything in modern literature.’
The Liverpool Mercury.—‘A story which will be read, not by his contemporaries alone, but by later generations, so long as its chief features—high emotion, deep passion, exquisite poetry, and true pathos—have power to delight and to touch the heart.’
The Pall Mall Gazette.—‘It is the product of a strenuous and sustained imaginative effort far beyond the power of any every-day story-teller.’
The Scots Observer.—‘In none of his previous works has he approached the splendour of idealism which flows through The Bondman.’
The Manchester Guardian.—‘A remarkable story, painted with vigour and brilliant effect.’
The St. James’s Gazette.—‘A striking and highly dramatic piece of fiction.’
The Literary World.—‘The book abounds in pages of great force and beauty, and there is a touch of almost Homeric power in its massive and grand simplicity.’
The Liverpool Post.—‘Graphic, dramatic, pathetic, heroic, full of detail, crowded with incident and inspired by a noble purpose.’
The Yorkshire Post.—‘A book of lasting interest.’
London: WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 Bedford Street, W.C.
Mr. Gladstone writes:—‘I congratulate you upon The Scapegoat as a work of art, and especially upon the noble and skilfully drawn character of Israel.’
Mr. Walter Besant, in ‘The Author.’—‘Nearly every year there stands out a head and shoulders above its companions one work which promises to make the year memorable. This year a promise of lasting vitality is distinctly made by Mr. Hall Caine’s Scapegoat. It is a great book, great in conception and in execution; a strong book, strong in situation and in character; and a human book, human in its pathos, its terror, and its passion.’
The Times.—‘In our judgment it excels in dramatic force all the Author’s previous efforts. For grace and touching pathos Naomi is a character which any romancist in the world might be proud to have created, and the tale of her parents’ despair and hopes, and of her own development, confers upon The Scapegoat a distinction which is matchless of its kind.’
The Guardian.—‘Mr. Hall Caine is undoubtedly master of a style which is peculiarly his own. He is in a way a Rembrandt among novelists. His figures, striking and powerful rather than beautiful, stand out, with the ruggedness of their features developed and accentuated, from a background of the deepest gloom.... Every sentence contains a thought, and every word of it is balanced and arranged to accumulate the intensity of its force.’
The Athenæum.—‘It is a delightful story to read.’
The Academy.—‘Israel ben Oliel is the third of a series of the most profoundly conceived characters in modern fiction.’
The Saturday Review.—‘This is the best novel which Mr. Caine has yet produced.’
The Literary World.—‘The lifelike renderings of the varied situations, the gradual changes in a noble character, hardened and lowered by the world’s cruel usage, and returning at last to its original grandeur, can only be fully appreciated by a perusal of the book as a whole.’
The Anti-Jacobin.—‘It is, in truth, a romance of fine poetic quality. Israel Ben Oliel, the central figure of the tale, is sculptured rather than drawn: a character of grand outline. A nobler piece of prose than the death of Ruth we have seldom met with.’
The Scotsman.—‘The new story will rank with Mr. Hall Caine’s previous productions. Nay, it will in some respects rank above them. It will take its place by the side of the Hebrew histories in the Apocrypha. It is nobly and manfully written. It stirs the blood and kindles the imagination.’
The Scottish Leader.—‘The Scapegoat is a masterpiece.’
Truth.—‘Mr. Hall Caine has been winning his way slowly, but surely, and securely, I think also, to fame. You must by all means read his absorbing Moorish romance, The Scapegoat.’
The Jewish World.—‘Only one who had studied Moses could have drawn that grand portrait of Israel ben Oliel.’
The Athenæum.—‘It is so full of interest, and the characters are so eccentrically humorous yet true, that one feels inclined to pardon all its faults, and give oneself up to unreserved enjoyment of it.... The twins Angelica and Diavolo, young barbarians, utterly devoid of all respect, conventionality, or decency, are among the most delightful and amusing children in fiction.’
The Academy.—‘The adventures of Diavolo and Angelica—the "heavenly twins"—are delightfully funny. No more original children were ever put into a book. Their audacity, unmanageableness, and genius for mischief—in none of which qualities, as they are here shown, is there any taint of vice—are refreshing; and it is impossible not to follow, with very keen interest, the progress of these youngsters.’
The Daily Telegraph.—‘Everybody ought to read it, for it is an inexhaustible source of refreshing and highly stimulating entertainment.’
The World.—‘There is much powerful and some beautiful writing in this strange book.’
The Westminster Gazette.—‘Sarah Grand ... has put enough observation, humour, and thought into this book to furnish forth half-a-dozen ordinary novels.’
Punch.—‘The Twins themselves are a creation: the epithet “Heavenly” for these two mischievous little fiends is admirable.’
The Queen.—‘There is a touch of real genius in The Heavenly Twins.’
The Guardian.—‘Exceptionally brilliant in dialogue, and dealing with modern society life, this book has a purpose—to draw out and emancipate women.’
The Lady.—‘Apart from its more serious interest, the book should take high rank on its literary merits alone. Its pages are brimful of good things, and more than one passage, notably the episode of “The Boy and the Tenor,” is a poem complete in itself, and worthy of separate publication.’
The Manchester Examiner.—‘As surely as Tess of the d’Urbervilles swept all before it last year, so surely has Sarah Grand’s Heavenly Twins provoked the greatest attention and comment this season. It is a most daringly original work.... Sarah Grand is a notable Woman’s Righter, but her book is the one asked for at Mudie’s, suburban, and seaside libraries, and discussed at every hotel table in the kingdom. The episode of the “Tenor and the Boy” is of rare beauty, and is singularly delicate and at the same time un-English in treatment.’
The New York Critic.—‘It is written in an epigrammatic style, and, besides its cleverness, has the great charm of freshness, enthusiasm, and poetic feeling.’
The Morning Post.—‘Sarah Grand’s Ideala.... A clever book in itself, is especially interesting when read in the light of her later works. Standing alone, it is remarkable as the outcome of an earnest mind seeking in good faith the solution of a difficult and ever present problem.... Ideala is original and somewhat daring.... The story is in many ways delightful and thought-suggesting.’
The Literary World.—‘When Sarah Grand came before the public in 1888 with Ideala, she consciously and firmly laid her finger on one of the keynotes of the age.... We welcome an edition that will place this minute and careful study of an interesting question within reach of a wider circle of readers.’
The Liverpool Mercury.—‘The book is a wonderful one—an evangel for the fair sex, and at once an inspiration and a comforting companion, to which thoughtful womanhood will recur again and again.’
The Glasgow Herald.—‘Ideala has attained the honour of a fifth edition.... The stir created by The Heavenly Twins, the more recent work by the same authoress, Madame Sarah Grand, would justify this step. Ideala can, however, stand on its own merits.’
The Yorkshire Post.—‘As a psychological study the book cannot fail to be of interest to many readers.’
The Birmingham Gazette.—‘Madame Sarah Grand thoroughly deserves her success. Ideala, the heroine, is a splendid conception, and her opinions are noble.... The book is not one to be forgotten.’
The Woman’s Herald.—‘One naturally wishes to know something of the woman for whose sake Lord Downe remained a bachelor. It must be confessed that at first Ideala is a little disappointing. She is strikingly original.... As the story advances one forgets these peculiarities, and can find little but sympathy and admiration for the many noble qualities of a very complex character.’
The Englishman.—‘Madame Sarah Grand’s work is far from being a common work. Ideala is a clever young woman of great capabilities and noble purposes.... The originalityoriginality of the book does not lie in the plot, but in the authoress’s power to see and to describe the finer shades of a character which is erratic and impetuous, but above all things truly womanly.’
The Daily Telegraph.—‘Six stories by the gifted writer who still chooses to be known to the public at large by the pseudonym of “Sarah Grand.” In regard to them it is sufficient to say that they display all the qualities, stylistic, humorous, and pathetic, that have placed the author of Ideala and The Heavenly Twins in the very front rank of contemporary novelists.’
The Globe.—‘Brief studies of character, sympathetic, and suggesting that “Sarah Grand” can do something more than startle by her unconventionality and boldness.’
The Ladies’ Pictorial.—‘If the volume does not achieve even greater popularity than Sarah Grand’s former works, it will be a proof that fashion, not intrinsic merit, has a great deal to do with the success of a book.’
The Pall Mall Gazette.—‘All are eminently entertaining.’
The Spectator.—‘Insight into, and general sympathy with widely differing phases of humanity, coupled with power to reproduce what is seen, with vivid distinct strokes, that rivet the attention, are qualifications for work of the kind contained in Our Manifold Nature which Sarah Grand evidently possesses in a high degree.... All these studies, male and female alike, are marked by humour, pathos, fidelity to life, and power to recognise in human nature the frequent recurrence of some apparently incongruous and remote trait, which, when at last it becomes visible, helps to a comprehension of what might otherwise be inexplicable.’
The Speaker.—‘In Our Manifold Nature Sarah Grand is seen at her best. How good that is can only be known by those who read for themselves this admirable little volume. In freshness of conception and originality of treatment these stories are delightful, full of force and piquancy, whilst the studies of character are carried out with equal firmness and delicacy.’
The Guardian.—‘Our Manifold Nature is a clever book. Sarah Grand has the power of touching common things, which, if it fails to make them “rise to touch the spheres,” renders them exceedingly interesting.’
The Morning Post.—‘Unstinted praise is deserved by the Irish story, “Boomellen,” a tale remarkable both for power and pathos.’
The Court Journal.—‘Our Manifold Nature is simply fall of good things, and it is essentially a book to buy as well as to read.’
The Birmingham Gazette.—‘Mrs. Grand has genuine power. She analyses keenly.... Her humour is good, and her delineation of character one of her strongest points. The book is one to be read, studied, and acted upon.’
The Times.—‘This is a novel of sensation. But the episodes and incidents, although thrilling enough, are consistently subordinated to sensationalism of character.... There is just enough of the coral reef and the palm groves, of cerulean sky and pellucid water, to indicate rather than to present the local colouring. Yet when he dashes in a sketch it is done to perfection.... We see the scene vividly unrolled before us.’
The Daily Telegraph.—‘The story is full of strong scenes, depicted with a somewhat lavish use of violet pigments, such as, perhaps, the stirring situations demand. Here and there, however, are purple patches, in which Mr. Stevenson shows all his cunning literary art—the description of the coral island, for instance.... Some intensely graphic and dramatic pages delineate the struggle which causes, and a final scene ... concludes this strange fragment from the wild life of the South Sea.’
The St. James’s Gazette.—‘The book takes your imagination and attention captive from the first chapter—nay, from the first paragraph—and it does not set them free till the last word has been read.’
The Standard.—‘Mr. Stevenson gives such vitality to his characters, and so clear an outlook upon the strange quarter of the world to which he takes us, that when we reach the end of the story, we come back to civilisation with a start of surprise, and a moment’s difficulty in realising that we have not been actually away from it.’
The Daily Chronicle.—‘We are swept along without a pause on the current of the animated and vigorous narrative. Each incident and adventure is told with that incomparable keenness of vision which is Mr. Stevenson’s greatest charm as a story-teller.’
The Pall Mall Gazette.—‘It is brilliantly invented, and it is not less brilliantly told. There is not a dull sentence in the whole run of it. And the style is fresh, alert, full of surprises—in fact, is very good latter-day Stevenson indeed.’
The World.—‘It is amazingly clever, full of that extraordinary knowledge of human nature which makes certain creations of Mr. Stevenson’s pen far more real to us than persons we have met in the flesh. Grisly the book undoubtedly is, with a strength and a vigour of description hardly to be matched in the language.... But it is just because the book is so extraordinarily good that it ought to be better, ought to be more of a serious whole than a mere brilliant display of fireworks, though each firework display has more genius in it than is to be found in ninety-nine out of every hundred books supposed to contain that rare quality.’
The Morning Post.—‘Boldly conceived, probing some of the darkest depths of the human soul, the tale has a vigour and breadth of touch which have been surpassed in none of Mr. Stevenson’s previous works.... We do not, of course, know how much Mr. Osbourne has contributed to the tale, but there is no chapter in it which any author need be unwilling to acknowledge, or which is wanting in vivid interest.’
Morning Post.—‘The merits of the book are great. Its range of observation is wide; its sketches of character are frequently admirably drawn.... It is extremely refreshing, after a surfeit of recent fiction of the prevalent type, to welcome a really clever work by a writer who is certainly not hampered by conventional prejudice.’
The Queen.—‘It is impossible to deny the greatness of a book like The Master, a veritable human document, in which the characters do exactly as they would in life.... I venture to say that Matt himself is one of the most striking and original characters in our fiction, and I have not the least doubt that The Master will always be reckoned one of our classics.’
The Daily Chronicle.—‘It is a powerful and masterly piece of work.... Quite the best novel of the year.’
Literary World.—‘In The Master, Mr. Zangwill has eclipsed all his previous work. This strong and striking story of patience and passion, of sorrow and success, of art, ambition, and vain gauds, is genuinely powerful in its tragedy, and picturesque in its completeness.... The work, thoroughly wholesome in tone, is of sterling merit, and strikes a truly tragic chord, which leaves a deep impression upon the mind.’
Jewish World.—‘For a novel to be a work that shall live, and not merely please the passing taste of a section of the public, it must palpitate with the truth of human experience and human feeling.... Such a novel is The Master, Mr. Zangwill’s latest, and assuredly one of his best works. Interest in the story is sustained from beginning to end. From the first page to the last we get a series of vivid pictures that make us feel, as well as understand, not only the personality and environment of his characters, but the motives that compel, like fate, their words and actions.’
Leeds Mercury.—‘The Master is impassioned and powerful, and, in our judgment, is vastly superior to Children of the Ghetto. From the first page to the last the book is quick with life, and not less quick surprises.... The impression which the book leaves is deep and distinct, and the power, from start to finish, of such a delineation of life is unmistakable.’
Liverpool Mercury.—‘The accomplished author of Children of the Ghetto has given us in The Master a book written with marvellous skill, and characterised by vivid imaginative power. It is not a volume to be taken up and despatched in a leisure evening, but one to be studied and enjoyed in many an hour of quiet, or to be read aloud in the family circle, when the toils of the day have given place to retirement and peace.’
The Times.—‘From whatever point of view we regard it, it is a remarkable book.’
The Athenæum.—‘The chief interest of the book lies in the wonderful description of the Whitechapel Jews. The vividness and force with which Mr. Zangwill brings before us the strange and uncouth characters with which he has peopled his book are truly admirable.... Admirers of Mr. Zangwill’s fecund wit will not fail to find flashes of it in these pages.’
The Daily Chronicle.—‘Altogether we are not aware of any such minute, graphic, and seemingly faithful picture of the Israel of nineteenth century London.... The book has taken hold of us.’
The Spectator.—‘Esther Ansell, Raphael Leon, Mrs. Henry Goldsmith, Reb Shemuel, and the rest, are living creations.’
The Speaker.—‘A strong and remarkable book.’
The National Observer.—‘To ignore this book is not to know the East End Jew.’
The Guardian.—‘A novel such as only our own day could produce. A masterly study of a complicated psychological problem in which every factor is handled with such astonishing dexterity and intelligence that again and again we are tempted to think a really good book has come into our hands.’
The Graphic.—‘Absolutely fascinating. Teaches how closely akin are laughter and tears.’
Black and White.—‘A moving panorama of Jewish life, full of truth, full of sympathy, vivid in the setting forth, and occasionally most brilliant. Such a book as this has the germs of a dozen novels. A book to read, to keep, to ponder over, to remember.’
W. Archer in ‘The World.’—‘The most powerful and fascinating book I have read for many a long day.’
Land and Water.—‘The most wonderful multi-coloured and brilliant description. Dickens has never drawn characters of more abiding individuality. An exceeding beautiful chapter is the honeymoon of the Hyams. Charles Kingsley in one of his books makes for something of the same sort. But his idea is not half so tender and faithful, nor his handling anything like so delicate and natural.’
Andrew Lang in ‘Longman’s Magazine.’—‘Almost every kind of reader will find Children of the Ghetto interesting.’
T. P. O’Connor in ‘The Weekly Sun.’—‘Apart altogether from its great artistic merits, from its clear portraits, its subtle and skilful analysis of character, its pathos and its humour, this book has, in my mind, an immense interest as a record of a generation that has passed and of struggles that are yet going on.’
The Manchester Guardian.—‘The best Jewish novel ever written.’
The Athenæum.—‘Several of Mr. Zangwill’s contemporary Ghetto characters have already become almost classical; but in The King of Schnorrers he goes back to the Jewish community of the eighteenth century for the hero of his principal story; and he is indeed a stupendous hero ... anyhow, he is well named the king of beggars. The illustrations, by Phil May, add greatly to the attraction of the book.’
The Saturday Review.—‘Mr. Zangwill has created a new figure in fiction, and a new type of humour. The entire series of adventures is a triumphant progress.... Humour of a rich and active character pervades the delightful history of Manasses. Mr. Zangwill’s book is altogether very good reading. It is also very cleverly illustrated by Phil May and other artists.’
The Literary World.—‘Of Mr. Zangwill’s versatility there is ample proof in this new volume of stories.... More noticeable and welcome to us, as well as more characteristic of the author, are the fresh additions he has made to his long series of studies of Jewish life.’
The St. James’s Gazette.—‘The King of Schnorrers is a very fascinating story. Mr. Zangwill returns to the Ghetto, and gives us a quaint old-world picture as a most appropriate setting for his picturesque hero, the beggar-king.... Good as the story of the arch-schnorrer is there is perhaps an even better “Yiddish” tale in this book. This is “Flutter-Duck.”... Let us call attention to the excellence, as mere realistic vivid description, of the picture of the room and atmosphere and conditions in which Flutter-Duck and her circle dwelt; there is something of Dickens in this.’
The Daily Telegraph.—‘The King of Schnorrers, like Children of the Ghetto, depicts the habits and characteristics of Israel in London with painstaking elaborateness and apparent verisimilitude. The King of Schnorrers is a character-sketch which deals with the manners and customs of native and foreign Jews as they “lived and had their being” in the London of a century and a quarter ago.’
The Daily Chronicle.—‘It is a beautiful story. The King of Schnorrers is that great rarity—an entirely new thing, that is as good as it is new.’
The Glasgow Herald.--‘On the whole, the book does justice to Mr. Zangwill’s rapidly-growing reputation, and the character of Manasseh ought to live.’
The World.—‘The exuberant and even occasionally overpowering humour of Mr. Zangwill is at his highest mark in his new volume, The King of Schnorrers.’
The Cambridge (University) Review.—‘That the book will have readers in a future generation we do not doubt, for there is much in it that is of lasting merit.’
The Graphic.—‘It might be worth the while of some industrious and capable person with plenty of leisure to reproduce in a volume of reasonable size the epigrams and other good things witty and serious which The Premier and the Painter contains. There are plenty of them, and many are worth noting and remembering,’
St. James’s Gazette.—‘The satire hits all round with much impartiality; while one striking situation succeeds another till the reader is altogether dazzled. The story is full of life and “go” and brightness, and will well repay perusal.’
The Athenæum.—‘In spite of its close print and its five hundred pages The Premier and the Painter is not very difficult to read. To speak of it, however, is difficult. It is the sort of book that demands yet defies quotation for one thing; and for another it is the sort of book the description of which as “very clever” is at once inevitable and inadequate. In some ways it is original enough to be a law unto itself, and withal as attractive in its whimsical, wrong-headed way, as at times it is tantalising, bewildering, even tedious. The theme is politics and politicians, and the treatment, while for the most part satirical and prosaic, is often touched with sentiment, and sometimes even with a fantastic kind of poetry. The several episodes of the story are wildly fanciful in themselves and are clumsily connected; but the streak of humorous cynicism which shows through all of them is both curious and pleasing. Again, it has to be claimed for the author that—as is shown to admiration by his presentation of the excellent Mrs. Dawe and her cookshop—he is capable, when he pleases, of insight and observation of a high order, and therewith of a masterly sobriety of tone. But he cannot be depended upon for the length of a single page; he seeks his effects and his material when and where he pleases. In some respects his method is not, perhaps, altogether unlike Lord Beaconsfield’s. To our thinking, however, he is strong enough to go alone, and to go far.’
The World.—‘Undeniably clever, though with a somewhat mixed and eccentric cleverness.’
The Morning Post.—‘The story is described as a “fantastic romance,” and, indeed, fantasy reigns supreme from the first to the last of its pages. It relates the history of our time with humour and well-aimed sarcasm. All the most prominent characters of the day, whether political or otherwise, come in for notice. The identity of the leading politicians is but thinly veiled, while many celebrities appear in propriâ personâ. Both the “Premier” and “Painter” now and again find themselves in the most critical situations. Certainly this is not a story that he who runs may read, but it is cleverly original, and often lightened by bright flashes of wit.’
The Times.—‘He is a remarkably even writer. And this novel is almost as good a medium as any other for studying the delicacy and dexterity of his workmanship.’
The National Observer.—‘Interesting and well written, as all Mr. Norris’s stories are.’
The Morning Post.—‘The fidelity of his portraiture is remarkable, and it has rarely appeared to so much advantage as in this brilliant novel.’
The Saturday Review.—‘The Countess Radna, which its author not unjustly describes as “an unpretending tale,” avoids, by the grace of its style and the pleasant accuracy of its characterisation, any suspicion of boredom.’
The Daily News.—‘The Countess Radna contains many of the qualities that make a story by this writer welcome to the critic. It is caustic in style, the character drawing is clear, the talk natural; the pages are strewn with good things worth quoting.’
The Speaker.—‘In style, skill in construction, and general “go,” it is worth a dozen ordinary novels.’
The Academy.—‘As a whole, the book is decidedly well written, while it is undeniably interesting. It is bright and wholesome: the work in fact of a gentleman and a man who knows the world about which he writes.’
Black and White.—‘The novel, like all Mr. Norris’s work is an excessively clever piece of work, and the author never for a moment allows his grasp of his plot and his characters to slacken.’
The Gentlewoman.—‘Mr. Norris is a practised hand at his craft. He can write bright dialogue and clear English, too.’
The Literary World.—‘His last novel, The Countess Radna, is an excellent sample of his style. The plot is simple enough. But the story holds the attention and insists upon being read; and it is scarcely possible to say anything more favourable of a work of fiction.’
The Scotsman.—‘The story, in which there is more than a spice of modern life romance, is an excellent study of the problem of mixed marriage. The book is one of good healthy reading, and reveals a fine broad view of life and human nature.’
The Glasgow Herald.—‘This is an unusually fresh and well-written story. The tone is thoroughly healthy; and Mr. Norris, without being in the least old-fashioned, manages to get along without the aid of pessimism, psychology, naturalism, or what is known as frank treatment of the relations between the sexes.’
The Westminster Gazette.—‘Mr. Norris writes throughout with much liveliness and force, saying now and then something that is worth remembering. And he sketches his minor characters with a firm touch.’
The Speaker.—‘A Victim of Good Luck is one of those breezy stories of his in which the reader finds himself moving in good society, among men or women who are neither better nor worse than average humanity, but who always show good manners and good breeding.... Suffice it to say that the story is as readable as any we have yet had from the same pen.’
The Daily Telegraph.—‘A Victim of Good Luck is one of the brightest novels of the year, which cannot but enhance its gifted author’s well-deserved fame and popularity.’
The World.—‘Here is Mr. Norris in his best form again, giving us an impossible story with such imperturbable composure, such quiet humour, easy polish, and irresistible persuasiveness, that he makes us read A Victim of Good Luck right through with eager interest and unflagging amusement without being aware, until we regretfully reach the end, that it is just a farcical comedy in two delightful volumes.’
The Daily Chronicle.—‘It has not a dull page from first to last. Any one with normal health and taste can read a book like this with real pleasure.’
The Globe.—‘Mr. W. E. Norris is a writer who always keeps us on good terms with ourselves. We can pick up or lay down his books at will, but they are so pleasant in style and equable in tone that we do not usually lay them down till we have mastered them; A Victim of Good Luck is a more agreeable novel than most of this author’s.’
The Westminster Gazette.—‘A Victim of Good Luck is in Mr. Norris’s best vein, which means that it is urbane, delicate, lively, and flavoured with a high quality of refined humour. Altogether a most refreshing book, and we take it as a pleasant reminder that Mr. Norris is still very near his highwater mark.’
The Spectator.—‘Mr. Norris displays to the full his general command of narrative expedients which are at once happily invented and yet quite natural—which seem to belong to their place in the book, just as a keystone belongs to its place in the arch.... The brightest and cleverest book which Mr. Norris has given us since he wrote The Rogue.’
The Saturday Review.—‘Novels which are neither dull, unwholesome, morbid, nor disagreeable, are so rare in these days, that A Victim of Good Luck ... ought to find a place in a book-box filled for the most part with light literature.... We think it will increase the reputation of an already very popular author.’
The Scotsman.—‘A Victim of Good Luck, like others of this author’s books, depends little on incident and much on the conception and drawing of character, on clever yet natural conversation, and on the working out, with masterly ease, of a novel problem of right and inclination.’