Macnaughtan, S. [Lame dog’s diary.] †$1.50. Dodd.
“The writer is supposed to be an officer, lamed for life in the Boer war, who settles down in his own village to get what comfort may be found in a humdrum existence. After a few pages we are at ease in the village of Stowel ... and find the match-making and tea-parties positively exciting.” (Sat. R.) “There are the two Miss Traceys, models of appropriate deportment; there is Mrs. Lovekin, self-appointed and embarrassing co-hostess at every tea-table; there is sweet, faded Miss Lydia Blind, and her sister Belinda, ... there are Anthony Crawshay, frank and free, and Ellicomb, the ‘artistic;’ there are the Darcey-Jacobs, ... and last, but not least, there are the Jamiesons, four spectacled young ladies, and Maud, ‘the pretty one,’ all upon matrimony and good works intent. But all these are after all, but a screen under cover of which Hugo, our diarist, may weave a half-unconscious day-dream unobserved.” (Lond. Times.)
“The author has succeeded with his heroine as well as with the rest of his cast.”
+ Acad. 69: 1289. D. 9, ’05. 250w.
“An unassuming bit of fiction, which possesses a certain quiet charm quite its own.” Frederic Taber Cooper.
+ Bookm. 24: 119. O. ’06. 570w.
“A pleasing bit of fiction which does not draw too heavily upon the reader’s nervous endurance.”
+ Critic. 48: 475. My. ’06. 70w.
“The ‘lame dog’ has worked up his diary into a delightful book.”