Reviews: Wise in their Generation: Two years or more ago Miss Pinsent gave hostages to fortune by writing a novel called “Jenny’s Case”, which even reviewers who read their five or six novels a week remember with admiration. The subjects were severe and forbidding but Miss Pinsent moved “from one end to the other mightily” without a slip or the shadow of a turning. A few months since, looking over the scenes and situations that had convinced us by the strength of their presentations, we felt glad that Miss Pinsent has not published another novel. Repetition would have been an intolerable feebleness. Strength on the field of romances very often means caducity upon another; Having read “Children of this World” however, we are convinced that she has a wonderful diversity of gift. The new novel is unlike the old in everything except reticence and forthrightness; she has advanced in ability and perhaps in power of comprehension. Certainly “Children of this World,” partly because of and partly in spite of its lack of humour, is one of the truest and sternest novels we have read for a long time. And in speaking of its lack of humour we may do it an injustice Miss Pinsent never allows a smile to flit across her page, and she has denied herself the relaxation of a single comic character, yet her main idea is so ironic that, for all its sadness, one laughs at the end of the book. … (description of the novel) … The machinery of the plot is heavy and complicated, but Miss Pinsent has managed it with no small skill. And what pleases us about the book is that all the characters are nice, pleasant, health-minded people, especially Gilbert’s wife, who might be a study for one of Mr. George Meredith’s girls. The style is strong and sustained, and Miss Pinsent is to be congratulated upon a distinct advance when advance was extremely difficult:
[“Children of this world” by Ellen F. Pinsent (London, Methuen & Co.)
Transcribed in whole or part from scanned originals: Presented with or without modified text and punctuation. For absolute accuracy refer to the original newspapers. Source: The British Newspaper Archive.
Referenced
GRO0245 Devonport: Ellen Frances Parker: 1866 – 1949