"_The Duchess of Wrexe_ stimulates thought and encourages reflection. It contains a multitude of ideas and it also allows the reader to think for himself. It is energetic and vigorous without being truculent; it sets forth social conditions without being polemic. It is genuinely a story, and it is at the same time a suggestive commentary on life. _On every page it dignifies the art of the novelist_.... With all his subtlety, with all his restraint, with all his ingenuity in making it a social study, Mr. Walpole has not made _The Duchess of Wrexe_ any the less effective as a story. It is a novel that entertains, that charms. On a single page of it will be found more about mankind and life than is discoverable in the entirety of many another novel.... He has lavished upon it ideas, situations, events and characters sufficient for the lifework of numerous other novelists."--_Boston Transcript_. "Those who take Mr. Walpole’s work as a plain story will find it of compelling interest. Those who read its message complete will be impressed by the sense of a great theme thoughtfully and powerfully presented. There is no flattery in the statement that this book is _one of the really great pieces of modern fiction_."--_New York World_. "All the grim, unyielding pride of race of England’s old autocracy is made incarnate in the personality of one aged woman, the ever-dominating title-character in this admirable study of changing social orders. It is a heroic picture that the author paints of this grim old head of the house of Beaminster. She stands out supreme amid the pages, one of the most notable figures put into a book in a long time."--_Philadelphia Press_. "Walpole has strengthened his claim to position by proving that he is not a man of one book, for _The Duchess of Wrexe_ is without doubt one of the big novels of the year. It is a novel of extreme significance."--_Samuel Abbott in The Boston Post_. THE GOLDEN SCARECROW