Reception
On March 7, 1889 the serial rights of The World’s Desire were purchased by The New Review, with the first part published in April. James M. Barrie summarized the critical judgment on The World’s Desire when he wrote that “collaboration in fiction, indeed, is a mistake, for the reason that two men cannot combine so as to be one.” Most reviewers, in fact, disliked the novel. The National Observer declared: “Mr. Lang we know and Mr. Haggard we know: but of whom (or what?) is this ‘tortuous and ungodly’ jumble of anarchy and culture?... This cryptic was moved to curse his literary gods and die at the thought of the most complete artistic suicide it has ever been his lot to chronicle”. Haggard was too busy to mind the criticism; however, Lang was infuriated by it.
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