'Much Esteemed Sir and Friend:
* * * I have furthermore compared your translation in many a striking passage with the original, which I always held in my hand. * * * Whatever was attainable you not only tried to reach most earnestly, but you have even most excellently succeeded in attaining. You have absolutely understood and perfectly rendered the meaning, the action, the spirit and the power of the sublime original. In splendid English verse we read Vondel's soul. Whoever knows Vondel will admit this, and whoever does not at present know him will learn to know and appreciate him from your translation. * * * It is also very plain, from the essays preceding the translation, that you have made a most thorough and comprehensive study of Vondel and of his poetry in connection with the entire field of the literature and history of his time. Though having myself read, and even written, in prose as well as poetry, so much concerning Vondel, I was often so impressed by criticisms and observations in your essays that I felt impelled to revise and complete my own conceptions."
"Mr. Van Noppen has produced a text which, so far as mere suppleness and naturalness go, might be taken for an original production, and his editorial labors have been considerable."—New York Tribune.
"There is reason enough for the publication in English of such a classic as the Lucifer, and it is fortunate that the work could be so artistically done."—Review of Reviews.
"To compare the two poems—Milton's Paradise Lost and Vondel's Lucifer—is as if one should contrast a great chorale by Bach or Mendelssohn with a magnificent hymn-tune by Sir Arthur Sullivan or William Henry Monk. The epic and the drama are both triumphs of skill. Why make comparisons? Rather let the world rejoice in two such possessions."—Philadelphia Record.
"It is particularly fortunate that the first English rendering of the great poem is so ably and conscientiously done. * * * Finally, the poem is illustrated by fifteen drawings in black and white by the famous Dutch artist, John Aarts, which are printed with the text."—The Bookseller, Newsdealer and Stationer.
"If only as a literary, or as a human document, shedding light upon the methods of the greatest of English epic poets, Mr. Van Noppen's work would be of infinite value to all students. But the book which he has translated possesses, besides these adventitious claims to respect, a supreme intrinsic value. It is a drama that is everywhere great, and in passages sublime. * * * That the present translation is a good one he who reads can discern. It is strong, nervous, and rhythmical. It is, above all, good English, not a Teutonized hybrid."—New York Herald.
Mr. Van Noppen's translation is spirited and dignified, and there is a distinct lyric charm, which he has managed to preserve—a rare feat with a translator."—Charleston News and Courier.
"For the reader who desires merely the artistic comment of the pictures that thoroughly illustrate this famous old poem we might add that Mr. Aarts has caught the spirit—the pictorial beauty—of Lucifer as perhaps no other artist of the day could have done. The man himself is a poet, and he has translated into these drawings the majestic tragedy of Lucifer even as Mr. Van Noppen has translated it into stately English verse."—Brooklyn Citizen.