Now there may be two opinions about the excellence of these stories as stories; but it may be confidently asserted that what Mr. Buchan set out to do he has done with a large measure of success. His is not a cheerful intention. Indeed, persons who demand cheerful literature should keep the book far from them; for it is the "back-world of Scotland" he tries to describe, "the land behind the mist and over the seven bens," the land where linger old terrors, which is haunted by ancient cruelties and a paganism so outworn as to be quite reasonably called inhuman. […] However, unlike in plot, vague terror of an unrecognised reality, the survival of an unkindly time, is in them all, to shake our smug content with the triumphs of civilisation, and to stir forgotten depths, from which rise what wars against our comfort. —Extract from a review in The Bookman June 1902.
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