“The Touchwood family is one of those detestable, fascinating families that we cannot have enough of.” K. M.
+ Ath p1035 O 17 ’19 1000w Booklist 16:245 Ap ’20
“Mr Mackenzie has here the material for a short story or, let us say, a well-balanced novelette. But instead of selecting, and sorting, and packing it down, he lets it take possession of him. There is of course a lot of amusing stuff in it, no end of satirical material, no end of clever and witty touches. But the book as a book is without form and void.” H. W. Boynton
− + Bookm 51:341 My ’20 420w + Cleveland p83 S ’20 50w
“‘Poor relations’ is a farce. Any number of children and adults pass through its pages, all acting exactly as children and adults act. A plot of quite exceptional banality and incidents of incredible age and vulgarity serve to display these life-like wares. It would be easier to think lightly of Mr Mackenzie’s failure if one did not have to remember what Henry James said of him. Remembering that, and remembering Jenny Pearl, the brief story of Mr Mackenzie’s career takes on some of the proportions of tragedy.” Gilbert Seldes
− Dial 68:611 My ’20 1100w
“‘Poor relations’ shows, moreover, that recognition of how strange people really are which has always been one of Mr Mackenzie’s virtues. He has resisted that persistent underwriting of character and circumstance which has been the curse of refined English literature ever since the days of Gissing, and has not been afraid to allow fantastic people to do fantastic things.” Rebecca West
+ New Repub 21:362 F 18 ’20 1200w
“Written in a light ironic manner, with much deftness of phrasing and a thorough understanding of the follies and meannesses and hypocrisies to which his ‘poor relations’ are so exceedingly prone, it yet usually and skilfully contrives to keep the reader in sympathy with its vain, generous, sentimental and self-deceived hero.”
+ N Y Times 25:1 Mr 7 ’20 750w