“A manifest labour of love, the work of an enthusiastic admirer, as appreciative criticism should be.... The volume aims at being a kind of guide to Meredith the poet, a Meredith manual. It studies the poems in all their varieties, and the poet, in all his aspects.... A good and helpful book, which really expounds Mr. Meredith’s strength, without shirking the acknowledgment that he is more trying than a poet should be.”—Ath.
“Mr. Trevelyan’s is the most detailed and elaborate study of Mr. Meredith’s poetry that has yet appeared. It is also mainly just and discriminating in temper. It is not brilliant or subtle, and its treatment is not always exhaustive.”
+ Ath. 1906, 2: 5. Jl. 7. 1910w.
“A scholarly and sympathetic study.”
+ + Current Literature. 41: 641. D. ’06. 1500w.
“This book ought to be of great service to those of Meredith’s readers ... who wish to grasp a view of life that seems to them at once impressive, sane, and extremely perplexing.” F. Melian Stawell.
+ + Int. J. Ethics. 17: 128. O. ’06. 1000w.
“Mr. Trevelyan is never the merely literary critic; he has no concern with fine lines considered apart from their meaning; he deals little with verbal niceties, with questions of rhythm and metre. He is more at home, he writes with more authority on the philosophy of the subject. His judgments of poetry have less insight and persuasion.”
+ + – Lond. Times. 5: 200. Je. 1, ’06. 2080w. Nation. 83: 249. S. 20, ’06. 720w. + + – N. Y. Times. 11: 370. Je. 9, ’06. 1860w. (Reprinted from Lond. Times.)