“This work is said to have the approval of the family of the late President of the Royal Academy, and may be considered authoritative, if not official. A friendship existed between Frederick Leighton and the author for more than thirty years, and so the pages which deal with personal characteristics will be found peculiarly intimate.... The book includes Leighton’s diary, covering a period of fifty years, and among the mass of interesting correspondence incorporated is to be found a number of letters from George Eliot, Ruskin, Browning, Henry Greville, and Charles Dickens. Besides many of Leighton’s finest works reproduced especially for this publication are several fac-simile drawings and paintings never before published.”—N. Y. Times.
“Unsatisfactory as biography, these volumes are entirely valueless as criticism. Instead of disentangling the real merits of Leighton’s work from less admirable characteristics, Mrs. Barrington vaguely couples him with Phidias and the old masters, and urges claims so absurd as to tax severely the patience and perseverance of all educated readers.”
| − − | Acad. 72: 91. Ja. 26, ’07. 1120w. |
“It is disfigured by one or two hasty figures of speech ... and the printer’s reader has been unusually neglectful of his duties. It is a pity to leave such blemishes on a book of sterling value, indispensable to all students of modern English life and art.”
| + + − | Ath. 1907, 1: 140. F. 2. 860w. |
“Unfortunately Mrs. Barrington is not as skilful in arranging and adapting her material as she has been industrious in collecting it.” Edith Kellogg Dunton.
| − + | Dial. 42: 309. My. 16, ’07. 1980w. | |
| + + | Int. Studio. 30: 363. F. ’07. 500w. |
“Interesting as are many of Leighton’s letters, and multifarious as are the details with which the book is filled, the reader would have been able to gather a truer impression of Leighton, his development, his artistic character, and his work as an administrator if the biographer had been more rigorous in selecting and had been a better critic.”
| − + | Lond. Times. 6: 61. F. 22, ’07. 1500w. |