Reviewed by Max West.
“We regret to say, the editor seems to have a very inadequate conception of the comparative method of study and of scientific methods in general.”
“It is a scientific study in what we may call the methodology of public relief for public poverty.”
“A useful compendium.”
Henderson, George Francis Robert.Science of war; ed. by Neil Malcolm.*$4. Longmans.
The author of “Stonewall Jackson” called the Herbert Spencer of military tactics was a master of the theory and practice of the art of war. This collection of essays and lectures which separately have been regarded as authoritative along their respective lines of thought, treat such subjects as “War,” “Strategy,” “The tactical employment of cavalry,” “Tactics of the three arms combined,” “Training of the infantry for the attack,” “Military criticism and modern tactics,” etc. The fourteen essays are preceded by a memoir by Col. Henderson’s staunch admirer and patron, Lord Roberts.
“Henderson is at his best in driving home with quiet persistence, and with the help of countless apt examples, the lessons of pure military warfare.”
“In the present volume there are many contradictions. So, too as regards style itself.”
“Reading them we get the real measure of the man; we realize the extraordinary compass of his knowledge, the wise way in which he looked on professional things, his power to put before his hearers or his readers matter for deep thought, and repaying any amount of thought bestowed on them.”
“It is rare for the reviewer to open the pages of a book in which there is so little to criticise, so much to admire.”
“Those in the volume before us are minor only in the matter of quantity, not at all in that of quality.”
“An admirable contribution to the serious study of the art of war.”
Henderson, Henry F.Religious controversies of Scotland.*$1.75. imp. Scribner.
“The story of the dozen storms that differences of opinion have generated in the Scottish church during the last two centuries.... Some of the chapters in this volume relate to recent contentions about the higher criticism; others to conflicts equally serious in their time, but now forgotten.”—Outlook.
“Generally. Mr. Henderson has treated a very difficult subject in a satisfactory way.”
Henderson, Howard.Ethics and etiquette of the pulpit, pew, parish, press and platform. $1. H. A. Schroetter, Covington, Ky.
A second revised edition of this manual of manners for ministers and members, which may prove helpful to those who have had no home training and who know nothing of common social usages.
Henderson, John.West Indies; painted by A. L. Forrest; described by John Henderson.*$6. Macmillan.
The text deals almost wholly with Jamaica and its people, chiefly its negroes. Much information upon the flora, the commerce, and various matters of interest to the tourist are given. The illustrations are done in color.
“Mr. Forrest has done better in this volume than he did in its predecessor, ‘Morocco.’ Mr. Henderson’s text falls considerably short of the artistic level of its illustrations.”
“Their joint work is a very attractive book. Its illustrations are charming. Mr. Henderson’s descriptive chapters are not to be taken tooseriously; they are light, bright, and rapid, not to say slap-dash here and there, and they display, as is only to be expected, not a few of the defects of those attractive qualities.”
“The book is very interesting, and within the limits which we think we have found, is valuable as a study of some of the phases of subtropical America.”
“The pictures of negro types are full of character and individuality. The reproductions are unusually good. The text of the book consists of the observations of a traveler, chatty and genial, but not penetrating to any great depth.”
*Henderson, R. S.Earthwork tables. 2 pts. $1.50. Eng. news.
This useful book of tables is divided into two parts: Part I. Preliminary earthwork tables, giving cubic yards per 100 feet for level sections, to which is added a graphical method of estimating quantities from a profile. Part II. Earthwork tables, giving the volume in cubic yards of prismoids 100 feet long by the average end area method.
*“The reviewer knows of no other similar table that equals it for range.” Halbert P. Gillette.
Henderson, William James.Pipes and timbrels. $1.25. Badger, R: G.
“A new volume of poems.... Pictures, music, dreams, and reminiscences of the classic world are the flowers that grow in Mr. Henderson’s garden, and from these he makes a most acceptable bouquet of the pretty old-time ‘mixed’ variety.”—N. Y. Times.
“There are poems in blank verse, sonnets, songs, and in all the meter is good, in some excellent. There is thought in all the poems, and it is poetic thought.” Eltweed Pomeroy.
“A certain compliance with the rules of prosody, a flavor of the sentiment of poetry, an inspiration toward the best, characterize these verses.”
Review by W: M. Payne.
“Contains many lovely lines and a few successful technical experiments.”
*Henry, Arthur.Lodgings in town.†$1.50. Barnes.
“To interest yourself in others, to go with the tide of the great city and observe closely every possible condition, is Mr. Henry’s recipe for happiness. Add to this an especial care for one person in particular—like Nancy—and the picture is complete. The faith that kept firm hold of the youth who began his New York life possessed of one clean collar and a poem must be the kind that moves mountains. Particularly good are the descriptions of the office where Nancy worked and the Baxter street lodgings where she and her poet lived.”—Outlook.
Henry, Arthur.Unwritten law.†$1.50. Barnes.
The purpose of this book is to show how, in our modern social system, ignorance of the laws themselves and of the crime done in breaking them often leads to tragedy. A German engraver, who loses his savings thru the speculations of his banker, sets innocently to work to support his family by engraving bank notes for himself, the result is Sing Sing. One daughter, simple and unlearned, comes to grief, while her sophisticated and selfish sister marries well. The book treats of both the upper and the lower classes, and of the many problems of modern life. The setting is New York.
“Handful of tragedies in the guise of a novel.”
“The book is animated by a fine seriousness, a single-minded sincerity, which pertain to the best and highest in American art and thought. It exhibits a certain crudeness, a certain toughness of fiber, which may militate against its right appreciation by the fastidious.”
*“Is an encouraging example of that best sort of realism. The style is simple, at times almost to the point of baldness. It will inevitably provoke discussion; it will arouse some antagonism; but it cannot fail to make people think.” Frederic Taber Cooper.
“There is no kind of excuse for the excessively plain speaking in which this book indulges. It impresses one as the work of a reporter rather than that of a constructive novelist.” Wm. M. Payne.
“The book has, perhaps, no merely literary merit, it is crude in plot and exhibits much bad taste in incident, but it has a certain sincerity in strength, and a vividness, too, in places.”
Henry, O., pseud. (Sydney Porter).Cabbages and kings.$1.50. McClure.
The author, who has lived many years among the people of the South American republics, draws upon his fund of experience in this breezy story which recounts the adventures of an energetic American in the land of popular revolutions. “The characters range from the native brown-skinned maiden to the daughter of an American banker, and from a peon to an absconding president. The game proceeds much like a rattling good comic opera—and the characters have many opportunities to spin yarns of the kind that have already made famous the name of ‘O. Henry.’” (Pub. note.).
“A book of very unusual interest and cleverness. The general popularity will necessarily be limited by the fact that it is essentially a man’s book. A number of the chapters might be taken bodily from the book and held up as admirable examples of short-story telling.” Stanhope Searles.
“The inimitably breezy style of story telling is retained in the main episodes. Has weakened the structure of the whole. The characters, so delightful in the original stories become less real, less convincing on their new stage.”
“Pure burlesque, but lively, ingenious, and slangily humorous, South American intrigue, Yankee resource, the colossal impudence of the American fakir, and the romance of unusual love complications, are all worked together into a semi-connected story, parts of which have been already used as magazine tales.”
Herbert, George.English works, newly arranged and annotated and considered in relation to his life, by G. Herbert Palmer. 3v.*$6. Houghton.
“Herbert, though a minor poet, is established in English literature as are few minor poets of the seventeenth century. His poems have been constantly reprinted for general readers.... The form of this edition is altogether admirable. The print is clear and restful to the eye, the margins are wide ... and the volumes comfortable to hold. The notes to the poems are printed opposite to the poems, so that one has the poem on the right-hand page, the corresponding notes on the left-hand. The illustrations are interesting and apt. The portrait of Herbert published here, for the firsttime as the frontispiece to volume I., is a notable addition to literary portraiture.”—Nation.
*“Of the more specific work of the editor one may say that it is at once scholarly and literary, minute in its exegesis yet mindful always that a poet and not a ‘corpus vile’ is under discussion.”
“The annotations are very thorough. The study of the matter and style is exhaustive.”
“It will ever hold its place, as one of the triumphs of American scholarship in editing English classics, alongside such works as those of Furness and Child. These latter are bigger and on bigger subjects, but they are not better done.” Cameron Mann.
“Has done his work as biographer and editor con amore.”
*“Every help to the reader’s eye and mind for the appreciation of Herbert will be found in these volumes, so great is the labor of love which Professor Palmer, with his own fine intelligence and training, has wrought for the most lovable and the most human of our religious poets.”
*Herford, Brooke.Eutychus and his relations.*70c. Am. Unitar.
Under this profound title appear the witty old-time pulpit and pew papers written from a layman’s point of view, which were first published anonymously during the early years of their author’s ministry, 1860-1861. They include quaintly humorous disquisitions upon: A ‘lay’ view of sleeping in church; Some people who always come late; Praising God by proxy; Pews; A country tea party; Over-much discourse; Unsocial worship; Parsonic acid, and other kindred subjects.
Herford, Charles Harold.Robert Browning.**$1. Dodd.
“The biographical element is sufficient, but is subordinate to the exposition of the poet’s work in the order of its production. The true biography of Browning can be written in no other way.... A clear perception of this fact, and a definite though not a rigid application of this fact to his material, give Professor Herford’s study a true biographic as well as an interpretative quality.”—Outlook.
“Prof. Herford’s study of Browning is in many respects complementary to that of Mr. Chesterton’s published last year. The style is, for the most part sober and balanced though there are occasional flashes of rather loose rhetoric, and the author has an odd habit of falling at intervals into comments which are banal or tasteless.”
“In scale it stands midway between Mr. Chesterton’s and Prof. Dowden’s; in quality it is to be compared rather with the latter.” H. W. Boynton.
“There could hardly be a better brief estimate of Browning’s genius than Professor Herford has given us.” Edward Fuller.
“The commentator knows his Browning well, has availed himself of the best and latest authorities, and manifests a considerable degree of sympathetic appreciation; but he is hampered in his presentation by a clumsiness of expression. Numerous misquotations from the poems ... do not strengthen our confidence in Professor Herford or his book.”
“The necessity to be poetic, to live up to his matter, has been too much for him.”
“This is likely to stand as one of the best of the numerous short critical lives of its provocative poet.”
“His treatment of Browning the poet and man shows considerable insight and unusual sanity.”
“His study of Browning is intelligent, sympathetic, and well balanced.”
“He has a gift of selection and juxtaposed selection which remarkably increases the pleasure of reading this sort of criticism. But the scheme of the book runs parallel with how many others.”
“We are not wholly in agreement with his estimate of the poet. Our chief difference is in regard to Browning’s literary form. The criticism generally, we greatly admire.”
*Herrick, Christine Terhune, ed. Lewis Carroll birthday book. 75c. Wessels.
A little birthday book that will delight “Alice in wonderland” admirers.
*“As a birthday book, it is hardly a success, and the selections do more credit to the compiler’s familiarity with her author than to her sense of appropriateness.”
*“Mrs. Christine Terhune Herrick has made the selections for the volume and nobody could have done it with more sympathy and understanding.”
Herrick, Francis Hobart.Home life of wild birds: a new method of the study and photography of birds.**$2. Putnam.
The “new method” consists in carrying away the nest with its eggs or young birds and also its immediate surroundings and setting it up before a green tent where it may be watched and photographed at leisure. 150 photographs of thirty species of our common birds attest the value of this method. The author also gives the results of his close observation of the nests.
Reviewed by Mabel Osgood Wright.
“The volume is a valuable contribution to the scientific knowledge of bird habits.”
Herrick, Robert.Common lot. $1.50. Macmillan.
The story is of a young architect who has grown up in the belief that he is heir to his uncle’s millions. When the fortune is left to charity, he takes up the common lot of toil unwillingly and is weakly led away from his young ideals by the desire for money. When his personal and professional honor are compromised, he is held to his expiation by his young wife whose unflinching faith in him forces him to be the man she thinks he is. It is a vivid representation of business life in Chicago, and the philosophy of the book is summed up in the closing sentence—“Fortunately there are few things that do make any great difference to real men and women,—and one of the least is the casual judgment of their fellow-men.”
“‘The common lot’ is worthy of wide circulation. It cannot fail to do good.” Amy C. Rich.
“An interesting and impressive story.”
“There is a good deal of character drawing in the book that is at once delicate and strong, and the story of how Francis Hart did not inherit the millions he hoped for, took up the common lot of toil, and what came of it, is among the best in recent fiction.”
Herrick, Robert.Memoirs of an American citizen.†$1.50. Macmillan.
A country boy, tired of his lot runs away to Chicago to make his fortune. His autobiography follows with an unusually strong personal note even for a self-told tale of the career which starts with service as a grocery wagon driver and reaches the ranks of the Chicago capitalist. The way is made by “turning Texas steers into dressed beef and Iowa hogs into leaf lard and sausage,” which would seem honorable enough did not analysis of his methods of operation reveal a dulled sense of moral obligation to people at large, the city, and any competing organization.
“No more absolute unswerving merger of the author in the character of his hero, of his self-effacement in the interest of good art, could ever be conceived of.” Frederic Taber Cooper.
“Professor Herrick does not appear to have a powerful imagination, and his literalness, and even his unusual power of penetration, do not in themselves suffice to carry a story otherwise deficient.”
“The story seems to be rooted in bitter cynicism and to embody the very philosophy of despair.” Wm. M. Payne.
“Is not in so happy a vein. The author sees things too big, and he has not enough confidence in the virtue of the American people, which will outlast transient vices.”
“This is not a book that we should care to see in the hands of youth.”
“Mr. Herrick’s book is a book among many and it comes nearer reflecting a certain kind of recognizable, contemporaneous American spirit than anybody has yet done.”
“The story is worked out with extraordinary virility, realism, and truth. Deserves reading, not only because of its subject and its moral force, but because of the thorough, faithful, and even artistic way in which the material is handled.”
*“It is penetrated by genuine intensity of spirit, and shows the hand of a high-minded and accomplished workman.”
“One of the most refreshing qualities of the story is its sanity.”
*“But one thing Prof. Herrick has achieved in spite of himself; he has somehow put,—no, hammered,—together a rough image of the American self-made man.”
Hess, Isabella R.St. Cecilia of the court.†$1.25. Revell.
“In Flanery Court, where Cecilia (otherwise Angelina Sweeney) lives, poverty rules.... Miss Hess ... has told a pathetically pretty story of the life of a poor little red-haired saint—her struggles against the hardships of life, her drunken mother, her little brother Puddin’.... There is Jim Bellway, who taught the make-believe saint, quite unconsciously, how to become a real one; and there is Mr. Daniels, who Cecilia, quite unconsciously, brought back to the straight and narrow path—and so on; and though the story wades through tears, it nevertheless ends in a burst of sunshine.”—N. Y. Times.
“Touches portraying the generosity, loyalty, and cheerfully borne privations of the poor are the best feature of this story of New York tenement life.”
Hewett, Rev. G. M. A.The rat.*$2. Macmillan.
Having arrived at the old age of three years, this hoary rat sits down to write his memoirs, recounting his many adventures in English mills and cornfields. He discourses on his wives and gives his conclusions upon boys, men, ferrets, and women. He also gives an exhaustive treatment of traps. There is much delineation of rat-character, and the experiences of a traveled friend who had lived in the sewers of London and Paris are given. The book is illustrated with colored pictures.
“A work which we commend to young and old alike.”
“It is a very English story of a very English rat intended primarily for English children and supposed to be told by the rat himself.”
*Hewlett, Maurice.Works. Ed. de luxe. IIV. ea.*$3. Macmillan.
The five hundred numbered sets of this edition de luxe are sold by subscription only. The volumes are appearing one a month in the following order: The forest lovers; Richard Yea-and-Nay; Little novels of Italy; New Canterbury tales; The queen’s quair; The fool errant; The road in Tuscany in two volumes; Earthwork out of Tuscany; Pan and the young shepherd and songs and meditations in one volume; Fond adventures.
Reviewed by Christian Gauss.
Hewlett, Maurice Henry.Fond adventures: tales of the youth of the world.†$1.50. Harper.
Four short stories of mediaeval romance, The heart’s key, Brazenhead the Great, Buondelmonte’s saga, and The love chase.
“Knowing well the possibilities of Mr. Hewlett’s fine ability, we lay down this latest volume with great disappointment.”
“One feels that in these few crowded, tumultuous pages there is more of the real essence of Florentine life than in the whole length and breadth of George Eliot’s ‘Romola.’” Frederic Taber Cooper.
“Mr. Hewlett is at his best in these short stories.”
“Taken as a whole, the impression remains that the book is made up of work done early in Mr. Hewlett’s literary career, and denied publication until now.”
“Not one of these stories is lacking in intrinsic interest, yet one’s dominant impression in closing the book is not of any of the characters or events, but of the cleverness of Mr. Hewlett.” Herbert W. Horwill.
“But it is ‘The love chase,’ the last story of the series, in which Mr. Hewlett probably surpasses anything he has ever written.”
“A volume of stories, splendid stories, full of action and passion, with an undercurrent oflaughter, all carried off with great spirit and style. They are told in wonderful words, so apt and abundant.”
“These four stories of Mr. Hewlett’s are as rich in imagery and as glowing in color as any that he has ever written.”
“These stories are remarkable rather for atmospheric quality than for construction or force of characterization.”
“The tales are medieval; rich in quality, decorative in effect and fascinating always.”
“The quaint and pleasing title of Mr. Hewlett’s new book serves as a preface for tales more deserving of the first adjective than the last, except in so far as artistic work is, in a sense, always deserving of the term ‘pleasing.’”
“His style, his vision, his passion—these are always there.”
Hewlett, Maurice.Fool errant.†$1.50. Macmillan.
The “fool” of Mr. Hewlett’s new story is an English youth with a very ardent temperament who goes abroad to complete his studies. He is guilty of many hot-headed indiscretions, chief among which is his boyish passion for the wife of his stern tutor. A pilgrimage of expiation follows his declaration of love for her. Much of the interest of the tale centers in the phases of Italian life of high and low degree which he encounters. “He has in his journeyings a quick-witted companion, who rescues him alike from rash promptings of his ‘daemon’ and from foes from without.” (N. Y. Times.)
“Mr. Maurice Hewlett, it may be said at once, has achieved a notable success in the latest of his books.”
“‘The fool errant’ will not make so wide an appeal to the general public as several earlier volumes of Mr. Hewlett’s. It lacks the tumultuous passion of ‘Richard yea-and-nay’, the epic bigness of the ‘Queen’s quair.’”
“The novel shows, on the whole, an advance over its predecessors. Has proved, by the charm and animation of his tale, that imagination and a sense of style need not, under favourable circumstances, seriously interfere with the writing of a good novel.” Edith Wharton.
“It is possible, though the statement is not to be made dogmatically, that Mr. Maurice Hewlett, in all his succession of legitimately showy triumphs, has done nothing better than this history of a ‘fool.’” Olivia Howard Dunbar.
“We feel that he is simply saturated with the life of the time and the color of the environment and that he has reproduced these things with marvelous fidelity. This is the chief title of the book to praise, and a high title it is.” Wm. M. Payne.
“Told with sureness of touch and undeniable brilliance.”
“A story of intense interest and a literary achievement of a very high order.”
“As a faithfully wrought and vigorous piece of fiction-writing the book is unusual.”
*“May be counted among the notable books of the second half of the year.”
“Mr. Hewlett draws a brilliant picture of a decadent period.”
“A book very subtly conceived and very admirably written.”
“This brilliant study in the picaresque seems to us one of the most successful of Mr. Hewlett’s works.”
Hewlett, Maurice Henry.Road in Tuscany.**$6. Macmillan.
Mr. Hewlett’s own words are perhaps best descriptive of the freshness of his view of life and art in Tuscany. He calls it “a companion of travel and leisurely, sententious commentary of the country,” and he strikes its key-note in his opening remarks. “His plan for the book has the freshness which marks its rendering of details. ‘Let the history, fine arts, monuments and institutions of a country be as fine as you please, its best product will always be the people of it, who themselves produced those other pleasant spectacles. I have always preferred a road to a church, always a man to a masterpiece, a singer to his song; and I have never opened a book when I could read what I wanted on the hillside or by the river bank.’” (Reader). He consistently subordinates art galleries to peasants, but gives legends, history, and piquant references to the art and literature of the country, with a lavish hand.
“Is one of those rare books having charm, and one which gives no less insight into Mr. Hewlett than into the hearts of all the dead and living Tuscans of whom he writes. Mr. Hewlett’s one fault, regarded as a cicerone, is that he gives us life in superabundance; he gives it to us often at the cost of other things which we are loth to sacrifice. Now guidebooks the very best of them, while they make excellent servants, are bad masters, Mr. Hewlett’s not excepted. Flippant he is, at times, perverse, even arrogant: but he understands the Tuscans, and he loves them. Whoever goes to Florence without ‘The road in Tuscany’ goes but half equipped.” Frederic Taber Cooper.
“One of those genial, leisurely, charming books, with a touch of infinite knowledge, that we find in the combination of the artist and traveler. It reveals the real Italy, with its color and fragrance, which is known only to those who get away from the towns and cities. Typographically, the work is elegant, and the pictures really illustrate.”
“His artistic suggestiveness never fails; his ideas and conclusions especially with regard to such unfamiliar places as Volterra, Cortona, Arezzo, and many more, seem almost invariably right.”
Heywood, William.Palio and Ponte. Methuen, London.
This “account of the sports of central Italy from the age of Dante to the XXth century” dwells upon a phase of Italian history almost unknown to literature. The Italian idea of sports was closely allied to the Greek idea of games, and they often grew out of rivalry in neighboring communities or celebrated some historic or civic event. Mr. Heywood shows their importance in the life of the mediæval Italian city, and pictures Lorenzo de’Medici, Sodoma, the painter, and Caesar Borgia racing their horses at Sienese pali.
“The style throughout is clear and simple,—in general not of marked quality, but occasionally showing such vigor and even beauty that one is tempted to wish for more suchpages even at the sacrifice of some of the by-paths of erudition.” Ellen Giles.
“Mr. Heywood has undertaken his study of these sports in the spirit of a true historian, and his researches have revealed a new side of Italy to English readers. But our author is more than a student of archives. He has bursts of eloquence in his style. He has interwoven a vast amount of local history, especially Sienese, since no Anglican, save perhaps Mr. Langton Douglas, knows his Siena better. Mr. Heywood tastes what he describes. He has gone to sources not merely in his facts, but in his inspiration. He has not compiled a book, but has written one for which all lovers of Italy can only be grateful.”
“Without a real love of Italy, and an unusually deep understanding of Italian character, this book could not have been written.”
Hibben, John Grier.Logic, deductive and inductive. $1.40. Scribner.
“Logic, so far as merely formal, is proverbially dry. In its application to living interests it becomes a succulent source of intellectual pleasure. Professor Hibben has aimed to invest it with this attractiveness, especially in his illustrations of inductive knowledge.”—Outlook.
“These are not only modern, but fresh in a degree as welcome to the student as it is unusual, and they are drawn from a wide range of science.”
“It is comprehensive and accurate in statement, systematic and free from trifling and irrelevant subtleties. On the other hand, the discussions of the early chapters seem to me somewhat too difficult and technical to afford the beginner the guidance he needs.” J. E. C.
Hibbert, Walter.Life and energy; an attempt at a new definition of life; with applications to morals and religion. $1. Longmans.
“The thesis of these four addresses—originally delivered at the Polytechnic institute, London—is that life is not matter, is not energy, but an unceasing nonfactorial directive control of energy and its transformations.”—Nature.
“Mr. Hibbert puts most of his points clearly, and much of what he says has considerable force. But it is doubtful if the range of ideas within which the book moves is adequate to the problem. The main position is not unassailable, and the deductions from it in regard to morals and religion are occasionally fanciful.”
“Neither the method of treatment nor the style of the book seems to us particularly happy.”
*Hichens, Robert Smythe.Black spaniel and other stories. (†)$1.50. Stokes.
The story of the black spaniel is an uncanny tale of a man who lost a dog-friend at the hands of a vivisectionist, of a doctor who met his death thru the bite of another spaniel on which he was cruelly experimenting, and of the awful revenge which the dog lover took upon this dead doctor reincarnated in a third black spaniel. The creepy atmosphere is well sustained thruout. The volume also contains eleven shorter stories, most of which have the Arabian desert for a background, and all of which are most original in theme.
*“Mr. Hichens, thorough decadent as he is, can make his decadence big; and it is wrong of him to make it as petty as this.”
*“To our thinking, ‘Mr. Greyne’ is the pick of the book.”
*“‘The black spaniel’ occupies only the first third of the book, but nothing that follows has the least power to blur the effect of the spaniel’s whine. The following eight stories ... are slight things, episodes rather artfully and artistically told. They will be read with pleasure and forgotten without difficulty, while ‘The black spaniel’ will be read with terror and forgotten never!”
*“Not worthy of the genius of the author of ‘The garden of Allah.’”
*“The title-story is of the gruesome kind most tediously spun out, the second ‘The mission of Mr. Eustace Greyne’ is funny and satirical and the best in the book.”
*“Few modern story tellers are more expert in their art, and this book would be well worth reading for the workmanship alone, had it not also something of the charm of unfamiliar and unhackneyed material.”