Coleridge, Mary E. Lady on the drawingroom floor. $1.50. Longmans.
7–35195.
“A dreamy prose idyl; the scene, that most unromantic spot, a London lodginghouse; the persons, a middle-aged spinster and an elderly bachelor. Yet with these unpromising materials the author succeeds in awakening sympathetic attention. The pleasant mystification running through these pages will not bear too close analysis; nor do we feel inclined to put it to such a test. Lucilla is the name of the heroine. She is as agreeable as her name, and lives in an atmosphere of flowers, music, and firelight, with pets as ill-assorted as a tortoise, a cat, and a parrot.”—N. Y. Times.
“Interesting, not for its plot, but for the character sketches and conversation and the originality of the two main characters. Unusually well written.”
| + | A. L. A. Bkl. 3: 107. Ap. ’07. |
“The dreamy and half-mystical charm characteristic of the author is stamped on every detail of the story, imparting to it an individuality and persuasiveness of its own.”
| + | Ath. 1906, 2: 730. D. 8. 120w. |
“Hers is the method, rare, indeed, among English writers of fiction, which constructs without letting the reader see the processes of construction. There is such comedy or tragedy or fantasy on every page that the reader soon feels that to skip even a single sentence is to run the risk of missing something essential to the general effect, and at once to defraud himself and to do injustice to the writer and there is something of the fineness of thought which is rarely absent from good work.”
| + + | Lond. Times. 5: 352. O. 19, ’06. 590w. |