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"Mr. Dowling's fictions have the decided advantage of being clearly-stated. He never throws his readers into confusion as to what the book is to be about, nor as to who is to be the principal character. His style is forcible and perspicuous.... The author of 'Les Misérables' may, indeed, be taken to be Mr. Dowling's master. Resemblances must strike even the most careless and rapid reader.... It is refreshing to the weary novel reader to recognise that a certain amount of thought has been brought to bear not only upon the composition of the sentences, but upon their matter.... In his manner of dealing with his plot, his last novel shows an improvement upon all the others, and he may be congratulated upon having written a powerful and decidedly exciting book."--Athenæum.
"Mr. Dowling has given us a clever and even fascinating extravaganza."--Standard.
"Fresh, free and powerful, the work of a master's hand, is the 'Duke's Sweetheart.' Strong elements are employed with great artistic skill to give force and depth of colour sufficient to enable the author to create his effects. There are bits of unsurpassed pictorial writing in these volumes.... Mr. Dowling as a novelist has many great characteristics; he possesses marked descriptive talent, and also the power of individualising his characters; they are real. We find ourselves accepting their words and action's as though they were living people.... We consider the 'Duke's Sweetheart' to be an exceedingly well-written and artistic novel, free from any taint of that immorality that too often clouds the clever and powerful fiction of the day."--Life.
"We feel ourselves out of the region of probability, and resign ourselves without further question to the simple interest of the story."--Spectator.
"A good and interesting novel, full of exciting details, and containing at least one episode--that of the shipwrecked yacht--which may challenge comparison with anything in recent fiction.... As for the description of the Duke's disastrous voyage, it is simply perfect; the author has never been seen to greater advantage than in this portion of the narrative, at once so realistic, and so full of the truest romance; and the final rescue, when the yacht is breaking to pieces on the reef, is tremendous in its power."--Morning Post.
"No novel-writer of the present day--not even Mr. Dowling himself--could write a better work of fiction than this.... Mr. Richard Dowling has managed to give us a work of the most powerful interest, and to create in the reader's mind the most intense curiosity even to the very end.... No more charming and delicate conception has ever been portrayed in fiction than that of Marion Durrant."--Court Journal.