“It is an amusing tale, but carries no serious conviction.”
+ − The Times [London] Lit Sup p801 D 2 ’20 120w
GIBBON, M. MORGAN. Jan. *$1.90 (3c) Doubleday
John and Jan are both Owens, John, son of the quiet, staid Henry, and Jan, daughter of the wild, wilful John. The younger John and Jan alike crave freedom and liberty from the time they play together as children. Even then John’s love for Jan is strong and protecting and it never wavers all thru their school life until she promises to marry him. But she finds the engagement irksome and after a quarrel, John sets her free. She experiments with her freedom, trying one excursion into liberty after another. But nothing satisfies, she and John are both miserable and both too proud to give in. Eventually she realizes that she would rather have love than freedom.
“The young lady who gives a name to ‘Jan’ labours obviously under the disadvantage—very usual with novel heroines—of meaning something to her creator, which has not been conveyed to the reader. The descriptions of Welsh middle-class life are vivid and sympathetic, and impress us as drawn from actual fact.”
+ − Ath p163 D 3 ’20 100w
“It is a thoroughly wholesome story, set forth by a writer who has the gift of frank, effective, convincing narrative. The value of this novel, which most readers will appreciate, lies in the fact that it is entertaining in itself, page after page.”
+ N Y Times p20 D 5 ’20 470w Springf’d Republican p7a N 21 ’20 190w
“This is a first novel which may fairly be described as promising. Praise must be given to the careful delineation of the characters of Jan and John.”