"The story is rich and spacious; it illustrates human nature, both British and American, in a simple and massive way, and paints both in the primary colours."—Westminster Gazette.
BELLA DONNA
By ROBERT HICHENS
Author of "The Londoners," "Flames," "An Imaginative Man," etc.
This is the excellent novel on which the excellent play of the same title is founded. It is a book full of weird, haunting scenes of passion in the desert, full of the strange sinister fatalism of Eastern minds.
"This is one of the best novels that we have ever read, and quite the best that Mr. Robert Hichens has written. It combines the two elements of which every good novel ought to be composed, subtle analysis of character and an exciting plot.... We will not spoil the reading of this book by sketching the thrilling plot, which is enacted on the Nile and its banks. Needless to say, the Egyptian scenery and servants are described by Mr. Hichens with affectionate familiarity."—Saturday Review.
"It is admirable drama. It lives with a present life, and moves swiftly. Some of the situations are intensely thrilling; the dialogue is firm and easy; the whole treatment forcible without theatricalism.... Our attention is fixed at the start, and kept to the end, on a duel between Isaacson and Bella Donna. It is magnificent ... there can be no denying it is a very fine novel."—The Evening Standard and St. James's Gazette.
"It is particularly interesting; its characters are drawn with particular care and splendid skill.... 'Bella Donna' is a fine study of a woman of passion; remorseless in its truth, fascinating in its unmasking of the hidden springs of selfish desire."—The Globe.