SOME PRESS OPINIONS OF
Kensington Rhymes
By COMPTON MACKENZIE

SATURDAY REVIEW:
“These are particularly jolly rhymes, that any really good sort of a chap, say a fellow of about ten would like. Mr. J. R. Monsell’s pictures are exceptionally jolly too.... If we may judge by ourselves, not only the children, but the grown-ups of the family will be enchanted by this quite delightful and really first-rate book.”

DAILY MAIL:
“Among the picture-books of the season, pride of place must go to Mr. Compton Mackenzie’s ‘Kensington Rhymes.’ They are full of quiet humour and delicate insight into the child-mind.”

OBSERVER:
“Far the best rhymes of the year are ‘Kensington Rhymes,’ by Compton Mackenzie, almost the best things of the kind since the ‘Child’s Garden of Verse.’”

ATHENÆUM:
“Will please children of all ages, and also contains much that will not be read without a sympathetic smile by grown-ups possessed of a sense of humour.”

TIMES:
“The real gift of child poetry, sometimes almost with a Stevensonian ring.”

OUTLOOK:
“What Henley did for older Londoners, Mr. Compton Mackenzie and Mr. Monsell have done for the younger generation.”

STANDARD:
“Our hearts go out first to Mr. Compton Mackenzie’s ‘Kensington Rhymes.’”

SUNDAY TIMES:
“Full of whimsical observation and genuine insight, ‘Kensington Rhymes’ by Compton Mackenzie are certainly entertaining.”

EVENING STANDARD:
“Something of the charm of Christina Rossetti’s.”

VOTES FOR WOMEN:
“They breathe the very conventional and stuffy air of Kensington.... We are bound to say that the London child we tried it on liked the book.”

MARTIN SECKER, NUMBER FIVE JOHN STREET, ADELPHI

SOME PRESS OPINIONS OF
The Passionate Elopement
By COMPTON MACKENZIE

TIMES:
“We are grateful to him for wringing our hearts with the ‘tears and laughter of spent joys.’”

SPECTATOR:
“As an essay in literary bravura the book is quite remarkable.”

COUNTRY LIFE:
“In the kindliness, the humour and the gentleness of the treatment, it comes as near to Thackeray, as any man has come since Thackeray.”

DAILY CHRONICLE:
“Thanks for a rare entertainment! And, if the writing of your story pleased you as much as the reading of it has pleased us, congratulations too.”

GLOBE:
“A little tenderness, a fragrant aroma of melancholy laid away in lavender, a hint of cynicism, an airy philosophy—and so a wholly piquant, subtly aromatic dish, a rosy apple stuck with cloves.”

GLASGOW NEWS:
“Fresh and faded, mocking yet passionate, compact of tinsel and gold is this little tragedy of a winter season in view of the pump room.... Through it all, the old tale has a dainty, fluttering, unusual, and very real beauty.”

ENGLISH REVIEW:
“All his characters are real and warm with life. ‘The Passionate Elopement’ should be read slowly, and followed from the smiles and extravagance of the opening chapters through many sounding and poetical passages, to the thrilling end of the Love Chase. The quiet irony of the close leaves one smiling, but with the wiser smile of Horace Ripple who meditates on the colours of life.”

WESTMINSTER GAZETTE:
“Mr. Mackenzie’s book is a novel of genre, and with infinite care and obvious love of detail has he set himself to paint a literary picture in the manner of Hogarth. He is no imitator, he owes no thanks to any predecessor in the fashioning of his book.... Mr. Mackenzie recreates (the atmosphere) so admirably that it is no exaggeration to say that, thanks to his brilliant scene-painting, we shall gain an even more vivid appreciation of the work of his great forerunners. Lightly and vividly does Mr. Mackenzie sketch in his characters ... but they do not on that account lack personality. Each of them is definitely and faithfully drawn, with sensibility, sympathy, and humour.”

MARTIN SECKER, NUMBER FIVE JOHN STREET, ADELPHI

SOME PRESS OPINIONS OF
CARNIVAL
By COMPTON MACKENZIE

ATHENÆUM :
“Mr. Mackenzie’s second novel amply fulfils the promise of his first.... Its first and great quality is originality. The originality of Mr. Mackenzie lies in his possession of an imagination and a vision of life that are as peculiarly his own as a voice or a laugh, and that reflect themselves in a style which is that of no other writer.... A prose full of beauty.”

PUNCH :
“After reading a couple of pages I settled myself in my chair for a happy evening, and thenceforward the fascination of the book held me like a kind of enchantment. I despair, though, of being able to convey any idea of it in a few lines of criticism.... As for the style, I will only add that it gave me the same blissful feeling of security that one has in listening to a great musician.... In the meantime, having recorded my delight in it, I shall put ‘Carnival’ upon the small and by no means crowded shelf that I reserve for ‘keeps.’”

OUTLOOK :
“In these days of muddled literary evaluations, it is a small thing to say of a novel that it is a great novel; but this we should say without hesitation of ‘Carnival,’ that not only is it marked out to be the leading success of its own season, but to be read afterwards as none but the best books are read.”

OBSERVER :
“The heroic scale of Mr. Compton Mackenzie’s conception and achievement sets a standard for him which one only applies to the ‘great’ among novelists.”

ENGLISH REVIEW :
“An exquisite sense of beauty with a hunger for beautiful words to express it.”

ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS :
“The spirit of youth and the spirit of London.”

NEW YORK TIMES :
“We hail Mr. Mackenzie as a man alive—who raises all things to a spiritual plane.”

MR. C. K. SHORTER in the SPHERE :
“‘Carnival’ carried me from cover to cover on wings.”

NEW AGE :
“We are more than sick of it.”

MARTIN SECKER, NUMBER FIVE JOHN STREET, ADELPHI