Page:The Spoils of Poynton (London, William Heinemann, 1897).djvu/312

 Author of 'The Silence of Dean Maitland,' etc.

The Standard.—'The Last Sentence is a remarkable story; it abounds with dramatic situations, the interest never for a moment flags, and the characters are well drawn and consistent.'

The Saturday Review.—'There is a great deal as well as a great variety of incident in the story, and more than twenty years are apportioned to it; but it never seems over-crowded, nor has it the appearance of several stories rolled into one. The Last Sentence is a remarkable novel, and the more so because its strong situations are produced without recourse to the grosser forms of immorality. '

The Daily Telegraph.—'One of the most powerful and adroitly-worked-out plots embodied in any modern work of fiction runs through The Last Sentence. . . . This terrible tale of retribution is told with well-sustained force and picturesqueness, and abounds in light as well as shade.'

The Morning Post.—'Maxwell Gray has the advantage of manner that is both cultured and picturesque, and while avoiding even the appearance of the melodramatic, makes coming events cast a shadow before them so as to excite and entertain expectation. . . . It required the imagination of an artist to select the kind of Nemesis which finally overtakes this successful evil-doer, and which affords an affecting climax to a rather fascinating tale. '

The Glasgow Herald.—'This is a very strong story. . . . It contains much rich colouring, some striking situations, and plenty of thoroughly living characters. The interest is of a varied kind, and, though the hero is an aristocrat, the pictures of human life are by no means confined to the upper circles.'

The Leeds Mercury.—'It shows a command of the resources of the novelist's art which is by no means common, and it has other qualities which lift it far above the average level of the circulating library. It is written with a literary grace and a moral insight which are seldom at fault, and from first to last it is pervaded with deep human interest. '

The Queen.—'Maxwell Gray has a certain charm and delicacy of style. She has mastered the subtleties of a particular type of weak character until she may be almost called its prophet.'

The Lady's Pictorial.—'The book is a clever and powerful one. . . . Cynthia Marlowe will live in our memories as a sweet and noble woman; one of whom it is a pleasure to think of beside some of the 'emancipated ' heroines so common in the fiction of the day.'

The Manchester Courier.—'The author of The Silence of Dean Maitland gives to the reading world another sound and magnificent work. . . . In both these works Maxwell Gray has taken "Nemesis" as his grand motif. In each work there sits behind the hero that atra cura which poisons the wholesome draught of human joy. In each is present the corroding blight that comes of evil done and not discovered.'


 * WILLIAM HEINEMANN,, W.C.