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The Pall Mall Gazette.—'Eight short stories, each of them written with a brilliance worthy of the author of Soldiers of Fortune, and each a perfect piece of workmanship. Every one of them has a striking and original idea, clothed in the words and picturesque details of a man who knows the world. They are genuine literature. Each is intensely fresh and distinct, ingenious in conception, and with a meaning compounded of genuine stuff. There is something in all of the stories, as well as immense cleverness in bringing it out.'

The Daily Telegraph.—'Stories of real excellence, distinctive and interesting from every point of view.'

The Athenæum.— 'The adventures and exciting incidents in the book are admirable; the whole story of the revolution is most brilliantly told. This is really a great tale of adventure.'

The Daily Chronicle.—'We turn the pages quickly, carried on by a swiftly moving story, and many a brilliant passage: and when we put the book down, our impression is that few works of this season are to be named with it for the many qualities which make a successful novel. We congratulate Mr. Harding Davis upon a very clever piece of work.'

A. T. Quiller-Couch in Pall Mall Magazine.—'Mr. Conrad's is a thoroughly good tale. He has something of Mr. Crane's insistence; he grips a situation, an incident, much as Mr. Browning's Italian wished to grasp Metternich; he squeezes emotion and colour out of it to the last drop; he is ferociously vivid; he knows the life he is writing about, and he knows his seamen too. And, by consequence, the crew of the Narcissus are the most plausibly life-like set of rascals that ever sailed through the pages of fiction.'

The Athenæum.—'This is a remarkable piece of work, possessing qualifications which before now have made a work of fiction the sensation of its year. Its craftsmanship is such as one has learnt to expect in a book bearing Mr. Conrad's name Amazing intricacy, exquisite keenness of style, and a large, fantastic daring in scheme. An extravaganza The Inheritors may certainly be called, but more ability and artistry has gone to the making of it than may be found in four-fifths of the serious fiction of the year.'