Others--a half dozen or so--that we mustn't speak of singly. Even such minor characters as Uncle Ivan and Baron Wilderling are etched perfectly. We would say a few words about the background.
Mr. Walpole makes Petrograd as memorable a city as does Tolstoy his Moscow, with Napoleon gazing upon its rounded domes. And that is memorable indeed, as any one who ever read War and Peace will certify. An intensely colorful city, lighted by stars and bonfires, exhaling the stink of the swamp and Rasputin's corpse, coldly menaced by the frozen Neva River, a volcano of human destiny with its thick ice melting rapidly from the heat of terrible flames underneath. A city where a great slimy beast seems to appear apocalyptically from the sheeted waters of the canal. A city where always there stands silhouetted against the evening glow the immense figure of a black-bearded peasant, grave, controlled, thoughtful, watching. A city of dream--only the dream is true.
There can be no doubt about it; this is a noteworthy book, a beautifully written book and--what is best of all--a book with a backbone. You may like it or you may not; you will be unable, we believe, to withhold admiration.--From a review in The New York Sun.
"Hugh Walpole has proved his right to eminence. The Secret City is a worthy successor to The Dark Forest. His art in presentation is consummate. But the trait that stands out in his writings is his humanity."--Chicago Daily News.
"This is, we believe, Mr. Walpole's best novel, a finer book even than The Dark Forest. Its descriptive passages are many of them superb; we get the sense of the strange and alien forces lying beneath the somewhat Europeanized surface of Petrograd in a truly remarkable way."--New York Times.
"It is one of Mr. Walpole's achievements in this book that along with his philosophic study of Russian minds and matters, he maintains a running, throbbing story of the romance-tragedy of the Markovitch home. Its form and style confirm it in a place of great literary distinction. Being the sort of book one desires to keep as well as to read, it sustains the final test of a fictional work."--New York World.
"Hugh Walpole has equalled himself at his best and far surpassed himself at his second best. A novel of the rare sort that is meant for the delight of discriminating readers."--Washington Star.
"The best recommendation of his novel is its excellent quality as a story: its absorbing interest in character."--Boston Herald.
"The story is tensely dramatic in its incidents and situations, its characters are real and interesting.... You cannot merely read this book, for if you mean to keep on you must think and keep on thinking."--San Francisco Chronicle.
"Mr. Walpole is a story-teller with something in him besides fine facility, and it is fascinating to consider this excellent example of his work."--The New Republic.