+ − N Y Times p24 Ag 29 ’20 330w
BRADFORD, GAMALIEL. Prophet of joy. *$1.50 Houghton 811
20–14773
This tale in verse relates the career of a millionaire’s son, a golden-haired vision of a boy, imbued with a faith that it was his mission to redeem the world with the gospel of joy. His first convert was a spinster cousin, Theodora, who undertook to stand between him and his stern father, to be ever his haven of refuge and to smooth the way for him generally. His exploits are many and fantastic. He meets all manner of people, the lowly and the artists, the pious and the rich, and he meets them all alike with laughter, gaiety, and love. With this love and joy in life he at last undertakes to assuage a striking mob and meets his death. The woman agitator whose method, unlike his, had been to stir up hatred and revenge as a means of salvation, but who had long loved the boy, vows before his body that violence must die and dedicates herself to “joy’s pure torch” and to love as the “Star of immortal hope to mortal men.”
“Characters, incidents and beauty of telling combine to make an interesting story and a poem of wide appeal.”
+ Booklist 17:60 N ’20
“What fun the author must have had composing all this! He has not only worked with his subject, he has played with it. He keeps up his own and the reader’s courage, sometimes by whistling. It is one of the most original contributions to literature that I have seen, and I know nothing in American literature which it resembles. And it is written in the American, not the English language.” W: L. Phelps
+ Bookm 52:170 O ’20 1400w
“When the ‘prophet of joy’ is killed in an attempt to mediate between a band of strikers and their employer, there is little sense of pathos because the character has been largely a creature of fancy and as such has engaged the reader’s attention rather than his affection. But Mr Bradford is fluent and dexterous and the rhymes carry one along through one hundred and ninety-three pages of easy and agreeable reading.” L. M. R.