Within a year of its publication, four editions of "Visions and Revisions" were printed—an extraordinary record considering that it was only the second book issued by a new publisher. The value of the book to the student and its interest for the general reader are guaranteed by the international fame of the author as an interpreter of great literature and by the enthusiastic reviews it received from the American Press.
Review of Reviews, New York: "Seventeen essays ... remarkable for the omission of all that is tedious and cumbersome in literary appreciations, such as pedantry, muckraking, theorizing, and, in particular, constructive criticism."
Book News Monthly, Philadelphia: "Not one line in the entire book that is not tense with thought and feeling. With all readers who crave mental stimulation ... 'Visions and Revisions' is sure of a great and enthusiastic appreciation."
The Nation and the Evening Post, New York: "Their imagery is bright, clear and frequently picturesque. The rhythm falls with a pleasing cadence on the ear."
Brooklyn Daily Eagle: "A volume of singularly acute and readable literary criticism."
Chicago Herald: "An essayist at once scholarly, human and charming is John Cowper Powys.... Almost every page carries some arresting thought, quaintly appealing phrase, or picture spelling passage."
Reedy's Mirror, St. Louis: "Powys keeps you wide awake in the reading because he's thinking and writing from the standpoint of life, not of theory or system. Powys has a system but it is hardly a system. It is a sort of surrender to the revelation each writer has to make."
Kansas City Star: "John Cowper Powys' essays are wonderfully illuminating.... Mr. Powys writes in at least a semblance of the Grand Style."
"Visions and Revisions" contains the following essays:—
| Rabelais | Dickens | Thomas Hardy |
| Dante | Goethe | Walter Pater |
| Shakespeare | Matthew Arnold | Dostoievsky |
| El Greco | Shelley | Edgar Allan Poe |
| Milton | Keats | Walt Whitman |
| Charles Lamb | Nietzsche | Conclusion |