“An absorbing story told with a marvellous simplicity.”
Times Literary Supplement.
“A picture of infinite tenderness and humanity.”—Daily Telegraph.
“Not for a long time have I been held fascinated by the development of a single human being in fiction as I am with this man Isak.”
Clement Shorter in The Sphere.
“Knut Hamsun ... is one of the creators, one of the Prometheans who have stolen fire from heaven. He has the godlike qualities that belong to the very great, the completest omniscience about human nature.”
Rebecca West in The New Statesman.
“... indescribably calm and tremendous ... so entirely human, that we cannot skip one line ... the critical faculty abdicates and there is nothing left but words of praise ... whatever else Knut Hamsun may have written should be translated with the least possible delay.”—Henry Baerlein in the Christmas number of The Bookman.
“New novels of lasting value have been very rare of late. Here, at least, is one.”—Review of Reviews.