This medieval romance purports to be based on some historical facts and on a manuscript by one Johannes Murinus, found in the library of the University at Bâle. The story is illustrative of the mystical conception that good and evil flow from the same source and are interchangeable and the result is a novel interpretation of dual personality. A proud mother of twins—one of whom is a deformed dwarf, albeit with a beautiful poetic spirit—thinks that by murdering him his spirit will enter into a corporeally beautiful demon, who obtrudes himself upon her in a dream, and thus make spirit and body one in beauty. She is correct in her first surmise but to her dismay, the body of the son also lives on with the spirit of the demon she has ousted. A second time she attempts to kill him in his new guise but only effects another exchange.
“It is written with a swash-buckling air, which reproduces with curious effectiveness the mediæval period in which it is laid.”
+ N Y Evening Post p11 N 13 ’20 140w
“Always the reader feels that the volume is the result of a fullness of rare knowledge which enables its author to pick and choose as he lists, with the calm certainty that whatever he writes will bear the stamp not only of literary artistry, but of absolute originality.”
+ N Y Times p16 N 28 ’20 600w
“The author’s invention remains at a high level throughout the story, and it is not till near the end that the practised novel reader begins to suspect his secret, but his vocabulary every now and then becomes too modern for the atmosphere such a story imperatively demands.”
+ − Sat R 130:486 D 11 ’20 130w
“‘The revels of Orsera’ would claim admiration on its merits quite apart from the antecedents of the author. When they are taken into account it moves the critic to something like amazement. Regarded merely as a story, ‘The revels of Orsera’ is continuously exciting, prodigal of surprises and often genuinely if grotesquely humorous.”
+ Spec 125:280 Ag 28 ’20 480w