+ N Y Times 25:252 My 16 ’20 600w
“The book is a hodge-podge.” H. W. Boynton
− Review 2:573 My 29 ’20 370w
“The genius of the book might as well be a grown man’s as a boy’s—it is ageless as genius always is. But the faults—and they are grave—are a young man’s or at any rate a young writer’s, faults. We should plump for Mr Agate being, say, in the early thirties. We profoundly hope that we are right, because we want many more books from him. We do not ask for them to confirm our judgment, but because English literature is starvingly in need of a new and still young first-rate performer.”
+ − Sat R 128:535 D 6 ’19 1700w
“A novel which bears clear traces of models so diverse as Wells and James and, perhaps, even the author of ‘Tristram Shandy.’ But such strength as the novel possesses lies in what is simple and straightforward. There are good glimpses of character.”
+ − Springf’d Republican p9a Jl 4 ’20 300w
“The great quality of the book is a manly and vigorous brilliance, which is enough to supply ten ordinary novels; the chief faults are a rhetorical exuberance of style and an inability to see that the reader wants time to appreciate the really good passages, such as the page where Edward’s father sends him to school or the illegitimate son’s explanation of what moved him to join the army.”
+ − The Times [London] Lit Sup p629 N 6 ’19 750w
AIKEN, CONRAD POTTER. House of dust; a symphony. *$2 Four seas co. 811