Literary Significance and Reception
No review of the book appeared in the Times Literary Supplement.
The unnamed reviewer in The New York Times Book Review of January 1, 1935 said, "The stories are sufficiently varied, both as to scene and as to plot, to afford this new detective the widest possible scope for his alibities. Parker Pyne can never supplant Hercule Poirot in the hearts of Agatha Christie's admirers, but he is a welcome addition to her gallery of characters."
In The Observer's issue of November 18, 1934, "Torquemada" (Edward Powys Mathers) stated that Christie was, "the only consistently inspired practitioner of an art where ingenuity and industry have so often to substitute for genius." On the subject of this collection, Mr. Mathers said that the book, "has a certain appeal to all Agatha Christie fans, and to ourselves and to all lovers of the well-made magazine story."
Robert Barnard: "A mediocre collection. Parker Pyne begins as a consultant Miss Lonelyhearts, ends up as a conventional detective."
Read more about this topic: Parker Pyne Investigates
Famous quotes containing the words literary, significance and/or reception:
“The literary artist will ... portray what he knows, and little else. Imagination is built upon knowledge, and his dreams will rest upon his facts. He is worth to the world just about what he has learned from it, and no more.”
—Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (1844–1911)
“The hypothesis I wish to advance is that ... the language of morality is in ... grave disorder.... What we possess, if this is true, are the fragments of a conceptual scheme, parts of which now lack those contexts from which their significance derived. We possess indeed simulacra of morality, we continue to use many of the key expressions. But we have—very largely if not entirely—lost our comprehension, both theoretical and practical, of morality.”
—Alasdair Chalmers MacIntyre (b. 1929)
“To aim to convert a man by miracles is a profanation of the soul. A true conversion, a true Christ, is now, as always, to be made by the reception of beautiful sentiments.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)