Sinclair, May. [Audrey Craven.] †$1.50. Holt.
“The story of the moral havoc wrought in the lives of men by a woman without a heart.... An early novel in a new edition.” (Lit. D.) “Audrey herself is a distinct creation, dominating the story even more than is the wont of heroines. Beside her, her lovers are shadowy.... Having yielded her heart in rapid succession to the child of nature, to the painter, to the writer, to the austere divine, she ends as the wife of the dullard.” (N. Y. Times.)
“The author is not without the defects of her qualities; and while these do not seriously mar the beauty of her work as a whole, they are not unapparent to critical admirers of an author whose novels may be said to make waste paper of most of the fiction of a season.”
+ – Lit. D. 33: 394. S. 22, ’06. 200w.
“While remarkable in quality, is immature. The interest of the story never flags, but it has its thin places. The writer’s powers are well in evidence, but not yet held firmly in hand.”
+ – N. Y. Times. 11: 543. S. 1, ’06. 580w.
“While ‘Audrey Craven’ is not well rounded out and lacks breadth of treatment and firm grasp on the reader’s attention, it shows very clearly the intelligent quality and the subtle knowledge of character that are applied in ‘The divine fire’ to a more complex play of motive and action, and to a far more striking situation.”
+ – Outlook. 84: 43. S. 1, ’06. 120w.
“Lacks dramatic power and real human interest.”