“Edwin Arlington Robinson’s new volume of miscellaneous poems, ‘The three taverns’ is likely to earn him—if he has not already earned—a reputation as the Henry James among poets. His fondness for portraying the complex facets of character in an oblique light and by means of inscrutable hints and sinuous innuendoes has led him to further workings of the vein of dramatic lyric opened four years ago by his famous ‘Ben Johnson entertains a man from Stratford.’ The present collection contains seven long poems of this sort, revealing in monolog or dialog a moment in the life of St Paul, Lazarus, Brown of Harper’s ferry, Hamilton, and real or imagined people of lesser note.”—Springf’d Republican
+ Booklist 17:106 D ’20
“‘The man against the sky’ indicated very clearly the place of the poet, it was very high—how high we had not the standards by which to measure. ‘The three taverns’ brings us much nearer to him, closer within the embrace of his sympathies, and, by the same law, lifts him much farther above us.” S: Roth
+ Bookm 52:361 D ’20 500w
“The substance of the longer poems in this book is more profoundly grounded in Mr Robinson’s philosophy of human nature and experience than in any of his other poems. Even in the shorter poems we find this power distilled until almost achingly the meanings break through a speech that is simplified to a bareness of figure or illusion. Take the poem ‘The mill’ and say if a tragedy could be so mercilessly told with the economy of speech by any other living poet.” W. S. B.
+ Boston Transcript p9 S 11 ’20 1850w
“Here is a great virtue that belongs peculiarly to Mr Robinson among American poets. His work is always packed with thought. ‘The three taverns’ is a big book and it grows with each reading. It is the work of lonely hours, of unfailing meditation, and of authentic genius, if such a thing may be admitted to exist in these troublous times.” H. S. Gorman
+ Freeman 2:186 N 3 ’20 1150w
“It is a sombre book, ‘The three taverns,’ sombre and polished to a high dark sheen, and the bitter tang of it remains in the memory after reading.” C. F. G.