“A very modern tale, dealing very modestly with British society—with true love, unsanctified passion, stark madness, and many vanities and pretences of this wicked world.... The hero is intellectually a fool ... a fine strapping young chap of true English meat, dull, but sound. Being the only son and heir of a baronet, his mother, who believes firmly in mustard plasters, has kept him out of the army and the university. Therefore going up to London, he promptly falls a victim to the wiles of a certain charmer of the town ... very beautiful and very, very wicked.... The book is full of malign caricatures of British types, the malignity lying largely in the closeness of the caricature to the living original.”—N. Y. Times.
“This tale of intrigue is well handled, and sometimes well told. It is always told with power; and it has the merit of being essentially interesting.”
+ Ath. 1905, 2: 681. N. 18. 340w.
“The book would be melodrama, if not for the atmosphere of reality it exhales, and the fine sanity of the lesson it teaches.” Frederic Taber Cooper.
+ – Bookm. 23: 189. Ap. ’06. 300w.
“There is nothing to redeem ‘The idlers’ from being the worst of fungus fiction except this element of masculine health in closing the situation.” Mrs. L. H. Harris.
– Ind. 60: 1043. My. 3, ’06. 450w.
“It is a good story for people who like their romance spiced with wit and anchored to a sense of things as they are.”
+ – N. Y. Times. 11: 117. F. 24, ’06. 670w. N. Y. Times. 11: 388. Je. 16, ’06. 90w.