HEWLETT, MAURICE HENRY. Mainwaring. *$2 (4c) Dodd
20–19506
The story portrays two extremely opposed types, a man and a woman. Mainwaring is a genius of a sort, grasping everything to himself, ambitious, a demagogue, reckless and unmoral. From obscurity he rises to political power and is only stayed from achieving the highest rung by disease and death. He burns himself out prematurely. While still quite young and out of his mastering passion of grasping everything he wants, he forces a beautiful young working girl to marry him. Lizzy in her selflessness, her poise and sincerity, her obedience to duty, is his opposite. She endures starvation with him but when he asks her to follow him into high life she refuses. She has seen through it at a glance and hates it, and prefers the duties of a housemaid to those of hostess at his banquets. He subjects her to every indignity but willingly accepts her services as a nurse during his last days.
Booklist 17:116 D ’20
“Mainwaring stands before a dull gray background, which is rather bad for the story, but serves the purpose of the novelist in making Mainwaring a crimson figure against this same gray. As usual, Mr Hewlett is fascinatingly facile with his pen, but this same smooth style cannot wholly atone for a very flimsy plot and a succession of avowed characters that are of no more use than a Greek chorus.”
+ − Boston Transcript p7 N 24 ’20 390w
“Lizzy is a human being, strongly conventional in her sense of duty, yet as freshly natural in emotional values as Eve strayed from the garden. On the whole, however, ‘Mainwaring’ is a disappointment as a novel. The author too apparently is doing over again with unconvincing dexterity things once well accomplished in ‘Rest Harrow’.”
− + N Y Evening Post p22 O 23 ’20 300w
“The sharp contrasts between these well-drawn figures, whose souls are silhouetted by the tragic circumstances in which the author places them, afforded Mr Hewlett equal opportunity to display his powers of creating and analyzing character. The artistry and dignity of the story he has written around them make ‘Mainwaring’ a worthy addition to the novels bearing his name.”