With hesitation one approaches the first novel of an author whose growth has been so steady as that of Walpole. It is therefore a double delight to find The Wooden Horse a thoroughly good story. Indeed, it has in it certain qualities which should, as Walpole's work becomes more and more known in mass, be one of his most popular. For it is filled with the youth's first joy of expression; its excitement about life and its yearning for strange new roads.
The Wooden Horse is the story of the Trojans, a family which accepted as tranquilly as did the Duchess of Wrexe the belief that they were the people for whom the world was created. But when Harry Trojan came home after twenty years in New Zealand, with the democracy learned by working his hands, he was the "wooden horse" who boldly carried into the Trojan walls a whole army of alien ideals, which made of that egotistic family a group of human beings content to be human.
Interesting are his struggles against stubborn prejudice; dreamlike the pictures of the old Trojan house, rising from the edge of the gray Cornish cliff like an older cliff, yet surrounded by fragrant rose gardens; but what most distinguishes The Wooden Horse is its passionate adoration of the sea, the cliffs, the weather-worn old Cornish houses, where bearded men tell of haunted moors and the winds of the deep.
"Reading this story after reading his later ones will not prove the disappointment that such a procedure usually is. Here are no signs of faults outgrown, no weaknesses that will hurt the lover of Walpole's later works--by which statement we do not wish to be taken as denying that he has developed. Mr. Walpole is a realist with a wide angle vision to whom not only the littered and close ways of short-sighted and selfish men are real, but to whom the large species of nature and her healing quiet are just as real. He sees life steadily and sees it whole--yet keeps his temper and his hopes."--Llwellyn Jones in The Chicago Evening Post.
"Nowhere has Walpole shown a greater grip upon life's realities, a stronger appreciation of the elusiveness of man-made conventionalities and a better artistic sense of the dramatic value of contrasts. In describing the subtle changes brought about in the family circle by the presence of one outside influence, Walpole has displayed much skill and literary power. There are no long disquisitions, no democratic preachments, but his dramatic personæ, when brought face to face with new situations, are moved to action according to their light. This is one of the very best novels from the pen of Mr. Walpole, and that is saying much."--Philadelphia Public Ledger.
"A most notable piece of artistry. In Harry Trojan, the 'unrepentant prodigal,' Mr. Walpole has given us a splendid vigorous personality whose acquaintance is a delight to readers wearied by heroes of the type of Harry's semidecadent son. The picture of the Trojan family is one which for vividness could scarcely be surpassed. And, indeed, Mr. Walpole has scarcely written anything more excellent than the account of the dying of Sir Jeremy Trojan--'I am going, but I don't regret anything--your sins are experience--and the greatest sin of all is not having any.' That, in a sense, is the motto of the book. The Wooden Horse is one of the few novels which not only may be read, but must be read by the discriminating reader."--Providence Journal.
"If one wishes to read a good story without being preached at, he can do no better than read The Wooden Horse. The story catches the atmosphere of the Cornish coast, and you have the feel of the salt spray in your nostrils as you read."--Indianapolis News.
"As delicate a piece of work as any modern novelist has attempted and superlatively well done."--Lexington Kentucky Herald.
THE GODS AND MR. PERRIN
Hugh Walpole spent some time as a master at an English provincial school, and consequently he has been able to put into The Gods and Mr. Perrin quite all the atmosphere of a school where the system, the confinement, the routine of petty tasks get on everyone's nerves and turn a group of human beings into strange hybrids that are at once machines and animals with raw nerves sticking out all over them. Whoever has--whether in the confinement of a school or an unhappy office or a jarring household--been smothered by the atmosphere of some set of human beings, will find himself in this book, and rejoice with Perrin's fight to break free.