“It is not provided with notes of any sort, and the literary style is too exuberant to be that of an historian writing primarily for students. It is not likely that very many readers will be able to plough through all of the twenty chapters. But no one with any interest in the general subject can afford to miss the last hundred pages of the book.” Laurence M. Larson.
| + − | Dial. 42: 41. Ja. 16, ’07. 1450w. |
“Easy as it would be to quarrel with the impression caused by this presentation, and to detect inaccuracies, the heart of Mr. Staley’s book is sound. It is not an important contribution to historical knowledge but an attractive work for the general reader.”
| + + + | Ind. 62: 155. Ja. 17, ’07. 780w. |
Staley, Edgcumbe. Lord Leighton of Stretton. (Makers of British art.) *$1.25. Scribner.
“An attempt to give Lord Leighton of Stretton his true place in art history, and at the same time designate a proper proportion to his gentlemanly characteristics. By birth, fortune, and environment Frederick Leighton was singularly placed for advancement in any profession toward which he might have been attracted. The first 173 pages of the book form a narrative biography built around the work of the artist from his early student sketches in Berlin and Florence to the unfinished canvases left at his death.... The closing pages of the book deal in a fragmentary, discursive, yet natural, manner with Leighton’s versatility, nobility of purpose, courtesy, sincerity, daily habits and patriotism.”—N. Y. Times.
“It happens that Mr. Staley’s praise is not only tiresome, but generally meaningless, and without any clear perception of the real quality of the work praised.”
| − | Nation. 84: 67. Ja. 17, ’07. 260w. |
“The [narrative biography] is admirably told with sufficient anecdote to appeal to the general reader, while the chronology of his advancement is preserved for reference through the titles of his pictures inserted as marginal notes.”