“‘Mary-girl’ deserves something better than so foolish and inept a designation. If it were merely one among a thousand sentimental romances, its title would be unobjectionable, but it is something more than that, and it is a pity that it should be so misrepresented. As a whole, it is a notably truthful record of a soul conflict and an absorbingly interesting story.” E. F. E.
+ Boston Transcript p6 Jl 17 ’20 800w + Cleveland p105 D ’20 40w
“A delightful human and unpretentious story, well written and very interesting, the tale has realism without pessimism, sentiment without sentimentality. A delightful book, vivid, human, dramatic at times and always entertaining, is this story of ‘Mary-girl.’”
+ N Y Times 25:27 Jl 11 ’20 750w
“The late Mrs Leonard Merrick was endowed with the rare gift of being able to write a thoroughly sentimental story with undoubted charm. The episode of Mary’s downfall is the least satisfactory thing in the book. It is false to the character, and for all its disguise is mere ‘novelette’ in essence.”
+ − The Times [London] Lit Sup p157 Mr 4 ’20 250w
MERWIN, SAMUEL. Hills of Han. il *$2 Bobbs
20–6286
“Betty Doane, the heroine, daughter of a missionary, returns to China after six years in the United States. On the steamer she meets Jonathan Branchy, author, explorer and newspaper man and a somewhat unromantic love affair develops between them. The development of their emotions is interwoven with the dangers threatening all foreigners in China from a new society, a recrudescence of the old Boxer organization, known as ‘the Lookers.’ The chief item in the creed of this society is the extinction of all ‘foreign devils.’ Betty’s position becomes increasingly difficult and complicated through the intolerance of her father’s missionary coworkers, and through a want of a sense of humor on the part of her lover. The adventures of the principals attain a climax at the headquarters of a French mining concern; this form of foreign activity excites the particular antipathy of ‘the Lookers.’”—Springf’d Republican