It is an excellent thing that these plays, the earliest of which was published twenty years ago, should have been brought together and given a new lease of public life.... It is indeed quite extraordinary that, with so much publishing of poetry during the last few years, work of such high distinction should have remained under cover. Mr. Gordon Bottomley's art of tragedy, as well as his craftsmanship in verse, can be seen ripening through this series until it comes to a rich maturity in "King Lear's Wife." Here ... austerity and compassion are compounded, and so create the tragic atmosphere in which small words are big with infinite meaning and hints develope the power of hammer-blows.... It is the best of the group, and it is significant, as showing the inherent union between matter and form, that when the poet writes his best play he also writes his best verse.... He is admirably master of himself and of his medium.
The Spectator.
Neither in the setting of the scene of "King Lear's Wife," the conduct of the story, or its embellishment and illustration, is there a wasted word.... But amid the abundance of this most rich, most ample of little plays, there is surely nothing—nothing, we mean, that can be detached from its setting—that surpasses Goneril's two speeches to her mother.... Whether Mr. Gordon Bottomley—though calling his creations by their Shakespearean names in his heart—would not have done better to call his monarch Cole or Cadwallader in print is a question with which controversy will probably long be busy. It is a play which would not be spoiled if, in a pet, he had called the protagonists Smith, Jones, and Robinson. We recommend this test, by the way, to those who are called upon to pronounce judgment upon the poetic drama. There is more in it than meets the eye.
The London Mercury.
It is some years since the public was surprised to learn that Mr. Gordon Bottomley had written a prelude to "King Lear," which not only offered some solution of the problems of that work, but was also in itself a play of considerable beauty, originality, and power. This piece now serves for the title of a volume of collected plays.... It was effective and moving on the stage, and it makes its effect, though perhaps a different one, when it is read in the study.... An extract will serve to illustrate the flexible, elastic, and individual versification. We should do wrong, however, if we were to give the impression that his plays are only for the study, valuable for such passages, and lacking in the harder bones of dramatic merit. The action is not an excuse for decorative poetry, but is the immediate and all-important thing.... These are the creations of a dramatist who has no need of descriptive decoration to conceal the weakness of his prime conceptions.
The Nation.
The wave of poetic drama has now ebbed, and this form is practised very little to-day, lyrical and experimental verse having almost entirely supplanted it. Mr. Bottomley's plays are the only ones which, with the going-out of the tide, have managed to escape its "long withdrawing roar" and retain a place on the shore.... Without any doubt they express a singular power of mysterious evocation.... They are not at all vague and inchoate—on the contrary, these towering shadows are remarkably and firmly differentiated.... We find "The Crier by Night" and "The Riding to Lithend"—especially the former—the most darkly and magically impressive of all the plays.... An image in the former positively makes you jump as Donne makes you jump with his imagery.... But perhaps his most striking achievement is the way he can make these shapes of an intensely brooding ... imagination speak out in taut, muscular, even gruffly vivid language. He has avoided, and very properly avoided, the tenuous chantings, effeminate imagery, and listless monochrome of the Celtic drama. Mr. Bottomley's plays, in fact, are peculiar and esoteric, but they undoubtedly achieve a strong success in their own character.
The Athenæum.
Mr. Gordon Bottomley is one of the few writers of poetical plays whom it is necessary to take very seriously: his blemishes are minor and few in number; his poetical qualities very much outweigh his defects. He is at his best in expressing subtle states of mind, and in formulating generalizations. His real distinction lies in his dramatic power. His characters have solidity and life ... they are not mere symbols, but human beings. His plays are marked by the economy of construction of stage plays. It is significant to note that Mr. Bottomley's pieces are excellent in proportion as they are actable.