“Clever dialogue, sharp analysis, and unexpected turns of plot place it in Mrs. Atherton’s best vein.”
+ =N. Y. Times.= 12: 653. O. 19, ’07. 40w.
“Most of the characters ... have one phase in common. They are self-conscious and analytical. They see themselves, as it were, in a mirror, and it is with their eyes fixed on the reflection that they move. It is, then, the thinker in her reader that Mrs. Atherton arouses. Her descriptive powers are strong and individual. She gives us pictures of London, of San Francisco, and of the death throes of that city vivid as paintings, startling as a vitascope. She is not so happy in conveying an effect of the cataclysm on the people. They remain too self-conscious, they converse too much, they see themselves experiencing the experience.”
+ − =N. Y. Times.= 12: 676. O. 26, ’07. 1120w.
“If only her technique of construction equalled her frank and clear-eyed understanding of human nature she might be unhesitatingly placed very high among the exponents of the best realism.” Frederic Taber Cooper.
“Admirable and distinctly entertaining story.”
=Atherton, Gertrude Franklin (Frank Lin, pseud.).= Rezánov; il. in water-colors. 50c. Authors and newspapers assn.
A historical romance of the early days of California, which chiefly concerns Rezánov, a Russian diplomat, and Concha Arguello, daughter of the Commandante of the Presidio. “Amid the splendidly picturesque environment of the same California landscape which Belasco recently has turned to such excellent use in his play a ‘Rose of the Rancho,’ the story marches vigorously to its predestined close and the proud Russian succumbs to fever and privation on his return from an adventurous expedition.” (Cur. Lit.)
“Is not the most interesting of Mrs. Atherton’s books: it is, however, in our opinion, the best written and the most carefully studied work of hers which we have had the pleasure of seeing.”
“If Mrs. Atherton has not succeeded in making [the lovers] absolutely alive to us, she has invested their love story with unusual charm and interest.”
=Current Literature.= 42: 229. F. ’07. 660w.
“A story which is, in many respects, conventional and—for all its heroics—rather lifeless.”
− + =Lond. Times.= 5: 394. N. 23, ’06. 500w.