From the Brooklyn Standard-Union.
“Afloat in a Great City” is a stirring story of the life of a boy cast upon his own resources in New York. His adventures are told with much spirit, and are worth the telling.
From the Boston Beacon.
“Afloat in a Great City” seems healthy and pleasant reading for a boy who does not care particularly about being a pirate or a cowboy, but likes to have his blood gently stirred.
From the Chicago Times.
The material is cleverly worked up, and, although the general drift of the tale is obvious to the experienced novel reader before he has gone very far, the author still has in store for him some interesting surprises of detail.
From the New York Daily Graphic.
“Afloat in a Great City” recites the history and thrilling adventures of a brave lad whose earliest recollections of life find him an orphaned waif in the streets of New York. He has the right sort of blood and grit in him. * * * * It is a strong, wholesome and dramatic bit of fiction. There are no wearisome homilies in it, yet everywhere it incites to truthfulness and manliness. It is well and copiously illustrated.
From the Evening Telegram, New York.
It is not specifically stated upon the title page that this is a book for boys, but it is evident from subject and treatment that it is intended to be so. There has been a great variety in the stories published for a clientele of this nature, and the space left for evolution between “Sandford and Merton” and “Tom Brown’s School Days” is very wide indeed. It has been well traversed and greatly improved upon. Mr. Munsey, author of “Afloat in a Great City,” understands that boys like to read of adventure, whether it takes place upon the high seas or in the heart of Africa, or whether it is limited by the boundaries of the American metropolis. He has chosen to condense a good many strange and unusual incidents as happening to a good and stout hearted though poor boy within the circumference of New York City. Mr. Munsey is a healthy expert at this sort of business. He does not work upon morbid sympathies, or seek to become interesting by appealing to emotions which had better be left in the background so far as the class for whom he writes is concerned.