“WASHINGTON IRVING.”
Mr. Warner has not only written with sympathy, minute knowledge of his subject, fine literary taste, and that easy, fascinating style which always puts him on such good terms with his readers, but he has shown a tact, critical sagacity, and sense of proportion full of promise for the rest of the series which is to pass under his supervision. — New York Tribune.
Mr. Charles Dudley Warner has made an admirable biography of Washington Irving, and his critical estimate of the man and the writer is unbiased, well weighed, and accurate. — Philadelphia Press.
It is a very charming piece of literary work, and presents the reader with an excellent picture of Irving as a man and of his methods as an author, together with an accurate and discriminating characterization of his works. — Boston Journal.
It would hardly be possible to produce a fairer or more candid book of its kind. — Literary World (London).
“NOAH WEBSTER.”
Mr. Scudder’s biography of Webster is alike honorable to himself and its subject. Finely discriminating in all that relates to personal and intellectual character, scholarly and just in its literary criticisms, analyses, and estimates, it is besides so kindly and manly in its tone, its narrative is so spirited and enthralling, its descriptions are so quaintly graphic, so varied and cheerful in their coloring, and its pictures so teem with the bustle, the movement, and the activities of the real life of a by-gone but most interesting age, that the attention of the reader is never tempted to wander, and he lays down the book with a sigh of regret for its brevity. — Harper's Monthly Magazine.
Mr. Scudder has done his work with characteristic thoroughness and fidelity to facts, and has not spared those fine, unobtrusive charms of style and humor which give him a place among our best writers. — Christian Union (New York).
This little volume is a scholarly, painstaking, and intelligent account of a singularly unique career. In a purely literary point of view it is a surprisingly good piece of work. — New York Times.
It fills completely its place in the purpose of this series of volumes. — The Critic (New York).
