+ − Review 2:600 Je 5 ’20 1000w
“Mr Harrison has a vigorous and effective pen, which often runs away with him and never quite knows when to stop; but his chief fault, as this book reveals it, is a love for exaggeration which detracts considerably from the value of his words.”
+ − The Times [London] Lit Sup p609 O 30 ’19 1150w
HARRISON, MARY ST LEGER (KINGSLEY) (MRS WILLIAM HARRISON) (LUCAS MALET, pseud.). Tall villa. *$1.75 (4c) Doran
20–3
The outstanding characteristic of this novel is that it is a ghost story. After her husband’s financial failure, Frances Copley betakes herself away from Grosvenor square and London high society and buries herself in Tall villa, a maternal inheritance and a preposterous piece of architecture, while her husband goes to seek a new fortune in South America. There the ghost of an ancient relative, a suicide from disappointed love, makes itself known to her and moved by pity she resolves to consecrate her life to his redemption. They hold daily concourse and by the time his earth-bound spirit has been released through her martyrdom, the latter for her had turned into rapture. Her spirit too, now longs for release and when the ghost makes its final appearance it is to free her too from earthly thralldom.
Ath p767 Je 11 ’20 460w
“The story is kept sane by means of the other people, the Bulparcs, Lady Lucia and her baby, and Charlie Montagu. Therefore it is cleverly done. But no one who has not been drawn by a spirit lover to the fairer clime can tell if the rest of it is really correct. To review the volume rightly one needs a ouija board.”
+ − Boston Transcript p6 Ag 14 ’20 520w