Hamilton, M. First claim. †$1.50. Doubleday.
7–5067.
“This is the story of a woman who, having made in extreme youth an uncongenial marriage, is tempted beyond withstanding to skip blithely away with a young subaltern, Charley Osborne, less from love of him than from aversion to her husband.” (Nation.) “It may be a very just punishment for a woman who elopes with another man, leaving a little child behind her, to find that this child is treated with a strictness amounting to cruelty by the woman whom her husband marries after the inevitable divorce. There is, however, no reason why the innocent reader’s feelings should be wrung by such a recital.” (Spec.)
“It is not great creative work, but it is remarkably good of its kind; it is the work of a novelist with an eye for character, a spontaneous sense of humour, and a standard of truth to which every line of the story is adjusted.”
| + | Lond. Times. 5: 360. O. 26, ’06. 450w. |
“The ending in a ghastly triumph of falsehood makes an unsatisfying conclusion to a story of struggle not without genuine power.”
| − + | Nation. 84: 292. Mr. 28, ’07. 230w. |
“There is no denying that ‘The first claim’ is interesting; but it is an unpleasant tale.”
| + − | N. Y. Times. 12: 242. Ap. 13, ’07. 190w. |