“The clansman” is the second book of Mr. Dixon’s trio of historical novels. The first, “The leopard’s spots,” as the author states in his preface, “was the statement in historical outline of the condition of the negro from the enfranchisement to the disfranchisement.” “The clansman” is the sequel, and “develops the true story of the Ku Klux Klan which overturned the revolution régime.” The great issues of the reconstruction period create a giant force which the dignity and strength of Lincoln grapple with for a brief period, and which the evil genius of “The great commoner,” Austin Stoneman, Thaddeus Stevens in thin disguise, dominates thruout the story. Congress’ policy of revenge towards the new South, the impeachment of Johnson, the radical faction’s determination to bestow civic rights upon negroes, the resulting reign of terror in the South under the sway of negroes and carpetbaggers, and the rise of the Ku Klux Klan provide stirring scenes thru which runs a double love story.
| + + | Acad. 68: 336. Mr. 25, ‘05. 180w. |
“The clansman may be summed up as a very poor novel, a very ridiculous novel, not a novel at all, yet a novel with a great deal to it; a novel that very properly is going to interest many thousands of readers, of all degrees of taste and education, a book which will be discussed from all points of view, voted superlatively good and superlatively bad, but which will be read.” F. Dredd.
| — — + | Bookm. 20: 559. F. ‘05. 920w. |
“One reads not far in the present volume until he is convinced that Mr. Dixon is not to be waved aside as a mere argumentative pamphleteer, but that he has in him literary possibilities of a high order. The advance from the crudities of ‘The leopard’s spots’ is marked, and is seen in every feature.” W. H. Johnson.
| + + | Critic. 46: 277. Mr. ‘05. 780w. |
“Book shows from beginning to end the effort of an unscrupulous partisan to become an artist. The story appears to have been got out of the Congressional Record and pieced together with two or three charming love affairs.”
| — — + | Ind. 58: 325. F. 9, ‘05. 1050w. |
“A thrilling romance. It is by no means equally certain that the book paints in any too vivid colors the chaos of blind passion that in the North followed Lincoln’s assassination or the reign of terror that resulted in the South.”
| + + | N. Y. Times. 10: 34. Ja. 21, ‘05. 1020w. |