“Mr Ervine, in spite of his obvious determination to fix securely the ‘local coloring,’ has failed to evoke the fine, harsh, sincere reality of the Black Northerners with whom his story deals. Prose drama is, after all, this author’s true medium.”
+ − Cath World 112:696 F ’21 100w Lit D p97 O 23 ’20 1850w
“John McDermott himself is not altogether credible. His exploits, especially his wooing of Eleanor—the central thing in the book—have none of the homely vigor and quiet truth of the Irish scenes and incidents. Here and there Mr Ervine gives us glimpses of a more searching novel he might write about the people of Ulster. But he deliberately cut himself off from that possibility here by the kindly promises to be harmless which he records in his dedication.” Ludwig Lewisohn
+ − Nation 111:74 Jl 17 ’20 500w
“To put it all as briefly as possible, ‘The foolish lovers,’ while not so remarkable a book as ‘Changing winds,’ is worthy of its author—and to say that a book is worthy of St John Ervine is to give it high praise.”
+ N Y Times 25:264 My 23 ’20 1200w
“Modern taste hardly asks for anything really better than such a suave and frank, sympathetically critical and wisely humorous treatment of life as is found in this book. Its tone just suits the mood of the cultivated man or woman of today who has outgrown youthful tastes but has retained a certain independence of view-point. In charm and in acuteness—the two qualities generally most worth commending in the fiction of the day, in which hysteria is so apt to take the place of power—‘The foolish lovers’ is preeminent.”
+ No Am 212:287 Ag ’20 660w
“‘The foolish lovers’ exemplifies to a very high degree the special gifts which have made its author’s novels notable among recent fiction. Mr Ervine has something of Dickens’s love for people. No more delightfully tender description of a courtship is contained in recent fiction, nor any which so finely sets forth as that in ‘The foolish lovers’ the unconscious humor of young love.” L. R. Morris
+ Outlook 125:388 Je 23 ’20 2950w