MICHAEL AND HIS LOST ANGEL.A New and Original Drama.By HENRY ARTHUR JONES.16mo. Cloth. 75 cents.PRESS NOTICES.“In ‘Michael and his Lost Angel’ Mr. Henry Arthur Jones has enriched, not our theatre only, but our literature, with a beautiful love-story. . . . Where shall we look, in modern fiction or drama, for a large, simple, lyrical love-story, neither philosophic, nor analytic, nor moral, but celebrating with the directness of a ballad or folk-tale, the potency for life or death of the divine illusion? I can think of nothing which so nearly fulfils this definition as Mr. Jones’s finely inspired romance. It is by far—oh, very far!—the best thing he has done.”—WILLIAM ARCHER inThe World.“One of the great comforts of criticising the work of Mr. Henry Arthur Jones is that the critic can go straight to the subject-matter without troubling about the dramatic construction. In the born writer the style is the man; and with the born dramatist the play is the subject. Mr. Jones’s plays grow: they are not cut out of bits of paper and stuck together. . . . When I respond to the appeal of Mr. Jones’s art by throwing myself sympathetically into his characteristic attitude of mind, I am conscious of no shortcoming in ‘Michael and his Lost Angel.’ It then seems to me to be a genuinely sincere and moving play, feelingly imagined, written with knowledge as to the man and insight as to the woman by an author equipped not only with the experience of an adept playwright, and a kindly and humorous observer’s sense of contemporary manners, but with that knowledge of spiritual history in which Mr. Jones’s nearest competitors seem so stupendously deficient. Its art is in vital contact with the most passionate religious movement of its century, as fully quickened art always has been. . . . The melancholy truth of the matter is that the English stage got a good play, and was completely and ignominiously beaten by it.”—GEORGE BERNARD SHAW inThe Saturday Journal.“Exquisitely touching, human, sad, and painful is the new play by Mr. Henry Arthur Jones. . . . Mr. Jones has the courage of his convictions, and presents uncompromisingly his problem. That his work is as capable as it is thorough will also be conceded. ‘Michael and his Lost Angel’ is a fine, we are not sure that we ought not to say a great play. Granting the choice of a subject, it is difficult to imagine treatment more masterly or more effective than it receives.”—Daily Graphic.“In his latest effort Mr. Henry Arthur Jones may not have written a play that will appeal to the taste of the average playgoer, but he has unquestionably produced a noble, and we may also add, a great work. It is serious in tone throughout, there is a rigid adherence to its single theme, and he has made no. attempt to lighten the subject by side issues, or lower it by the introduction of any motive or thought below the high level of achievement which, it is self-evident, he marked out for himself. We are no upholders of the morbid drama, of that dragging on to the stage social horrors merely for stage effect, but if we are to have a serious drama then let it be of the quality of ‘Michael and his Lost Angel’ produced last night at the Lyceum with but equivocal success. Mr. Jones has given us a play of heart-searching truth, a play based on the aspirations and failings of two souls, of love in conflict with religion. He has brought to bear on it a depth of study and insight into the workings of the human heart most profoundly true, and he has clothed the skeleton of his drama with language so noble and expressive that a single hearing enables one to do it only faint justice. A powerful command of the English tongue has long been acknowledged to be among Mr. Jones’s especial gifts, and never before has he, from the purely literary point of view, accomplished anything so refined and poetical in expression, so instinct with the true language of the heart. Whatever may be the success of the new play from the box-office point of view, there is no doubt that it will rank in the minds of thoughtful men as his finest work.”—Morning Advertiser.“Mr. Henry Arthur Jones has written his masterpiece—of this there can be no doubt. But whether ‘Michael and his Lost Angel’ will achieve a popular success depends entirely upon how far popular judgment is able to appreciate this work—deeply sombre, terribly real, and heartrending from first to last—and whether following with awe its judiciously-set lesson on the frailty of woman and man, the mind will not be too much taxed by serious thoughts to consider ‘Michael and his Lost Angel’ in the light of an evening’s amusement. . . . The fact remains that Mr. Jones has, with the power of a master, constructed a play of engrossing interest, knit together with a strength and breadth of grasp which leaves a feeling of astonishment at the close of the play, astonishment, because the picturesqueness, and the sorrowful reality of the play are borne down upon you with a force and intenseness that leave no escape for the mind to speculate or to anticipate. The fascination of the picture is absorbing and complete, and one bounds back to stalls and human faces at the close of each act with a thud in the brain.”—Court Journal.OTHER WORKS BY HENRY ARTHUR JONES.SAINTS AND SINNERS.A New and Original Drama of Middle-Class Life, in Five Acts.16mo. Cloth. 75 cents.THE CRUSADERS.An Original Comedy of Modern London Life.16mo. Cloth. 75 cents.JUDAH.An Original Play in Three Acts.16mo. Cloth. 75 cents.THE MASQUERADERS.An Original Play.In the press.THE RENASCENCE OF THE ENGLISH DRAMA.Essays, Lectures, and Fragments relating to the Modern English Stage, written and delivered in the years 1883-94.12mo. Cloth. $1.75.MACMILLAN & CO.,66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK.
MICHAEL AND HIS LOST ANGEL.
A New and Original Drama.
By HENRY ARTHUR JONES.
16mo. Cloth. 75 cents.
PRESS NOTICES.
“In ‘Michael and his Lost Angel’ Mr. Henry Arthur Jones has enriched, not our theatre only, but our literature, with a beautiful love-story. . . . Where shall we look, in modern fiction or drama, for a large, simple, lyrical love-story, neither philosophic, nor analytic, nor moral, but celebrating with the directness of a ballad or folk-tale, the potency for life or death of the divine illusion? I can think of nothing which so nearly fulfils this definition as Mr. Jones’s finely inspired romance. It is by far—oh, very far!—the best thing he has done.”
—WILLIAM ARCHER inThe World.
“One of the great comforts of criticising the work of Mr. Henry Arthur Jones is that the critic can go straight to the subject-matter without troubling about the dramatic construction. In the born writer the style is the man; and with the born dramatist the play is the subject. Mr. Jones’s plays grow: they are not cut out of bits of paper and stuck together. . . . When I respond to the appeal of Mr. Jones’s art by throwing myself sympathetically into his characteristic attitude of mind, I am conscious of no shortcoming in ‘Michael and his Lost Angel.’ It then seems to me to be a genuinely sincere and moving play, feelingly imagined, written with knowledge as to the man and insight as to the woman by an author equipped not only with the experience of an adept playwright, and a kindly and humorous observer’s sense of contemporary manners, but with that knowledge of spiritual history in which Mr. Jones’s nearest competitors seem so stupendously deficient. Its art is in vital contact with the most passionate religious movement of its century, as fully quickened art always has been. . . . The melancholy truth of the matter is that the English stage got a good play, and was completely and ignominiously beaten by it.”
—GEORGE BERNARD SHAW inThe Saturday Journal.
“Exquisitely touching, human, sad, and painful is the new play by Mr. Henry Arthur Jones. . . . Mr. Jones has the courage of his convictions, and presents uncompromisingly his problem. That his work is as capable as it is thorough will also be conceded. ‘Michael and his Lost Angel’ is a fine, we are not sure that we ought not to say a great play. Granting the choice of a subject, it is difficult to imagine treatment more masterly or more effective than it receives.”
—Daily Graphic.
“In his latest effort Mr. Henry Arthur Jones may not have written a play that will appeal to the taste of the average playgoer, but he has unquestionably produced a noble, and we may also add, a great work. It is serious in tone throughout, there is a rigid adherence to its single theme, and he has made no. attempt to lighten the subject by side issues, or lower it by the introduction of any motive or thought below the high level of achievement which, it is self-evident, he marked out for himself. We are no upholders of the morbid drama, of that dragging on to the stage social horrors merely for stage effect, but if we are to have a serious drama then let it be of the quality of ‘Michael and his Lost Angel’ produced last night at the Lyceum with but equivocal success. Mr. Jones has given us a play of heart-searching truth, a play based on the aspirations and failings of two souls, of love in conflict with religion. He has brought to bear on it a depth of study and insight into the workings of the human heart most profoundly true, and he has clothed the skeleton of his drama with language so noble and expressive that a single hearing enables one to do it only faint justice. A powerful command of the English tongue has long been acknowledged to be among Mr. Jones’s especial gifts, and never before has he, from the purely literary point of view, accomplished anything so refined and poetical in expression, so instinct with the true language of the heart. Whatever may be the success of the new play from the box-office point of view, there is no doubt that it will rank in the minds of thoughtful men as his finest work.”
—Morning Advertiser.
“Mr. Henry Arthur Jones has written his masterpiece—of this there can be no doubt. But whether ‘Michael and his Lost Angel’ will achieve a popular success depends entirely upon how far popular judgment is able to appreciate this work—deeply sombre, terribly real, and heartrending from first to last—and whether following with awe its judiciously-set lesson on the frailty of woman and man, the mind will not be too much taxed by serious thoughts to consider ‘Michael and his Lost Angel’ in the light of an evening’s amusement. . . . The fact remains that Mr. Jones has, with the power of a master, constructed a play of engrossing interest, knit together with a strength and breadth of grasp which leaves a feeling of astonishment at the close of the play, astonishment, because the picturesqueness, and the sorrowful reality of the play are borne down upon you with a force and intenseness that leave no escape for the mind to speculate or to anticipate. The fascination of the picture is absorbing and complete, and one bounds back to stalls and human faces at the close of each act with a thud in the brain.”
—Court Journal.
OTHER WORKS BY HENRY ARTHUR JONES.
SAINTS AND SINNERS.A New and Original Drama of Middle-Class Life, in Five Acts.16mo. Cloth. 75 cents.
THE CRUSADERS.An Original Comedy of Modern London Life.16mo. Cloth. 75 cents.
JUDAH.An Original Play in Three Acts.16mo. Cloth. 75 cents.
THE MASQUERADERS.An Original Play.In the press.
THE RENASCENCE OF THE ENGLISH DRAMA.Essays, Lectures, and Fragments relating to the Modern English Stage, written and delivered in the years 1883-94.12mo. Cloth. $1.75.
MACMILLAN & CO.,66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK.