+ Ath p384 Mr 19 ’20 90w
“There is not one author treated by Mr Mais of whom the reader will get a just estimate, for frothy appreciation is not justice; but there is one author whom the reader will come to know all too well, and he is Mr Mais. Even in his interminable and ill-written summaries of other men’s work, of which the bulk of the book consists, Mr Mais obtrudes himself. He cannot create, he cannot judge, and with his own clamour he deafens judgment.” O. W.
− Ath p542 Ap 23 ’20 1300w
“The most interesting part of Mr Mais’s ‘Books and their writers’ is, to my mind, that devoted to novels and novelists.” K. F. Gerould
+ − Bookm 52:264 N ’20 460w
“Although Mr Mais’s title is commonplace, his essays are not likewise dull. They are variable in quality, to be sure, and there is in them a revelation of the critical faculty their writer so explicitly denies himself.” E. F. E.
+ Boston Transcript p5 S 22 ’20 750w
“An easily readable book, full of time beguiling extracts from the authors under review—an excellent reference book to supplement more critical and comprehensive works on contemporary literature.”
+ N Y Evening Post p8 S 25 ’20 170w
“One likes Mr Mais because he likes all sorts of things, and writes about them with a zest which compels you to like them, too, whether you agree with his judgments or not.” R: Le Gallienne