Joseph Hergesheimer (1880–1954)

Hergesheimer writes in a style that is now considered overly flowery and complex but in his day would have been more common. I enjoyed the book and found it interesting to see the character development from the viewpoint of an author who was clearly unfamiliar with the setting in which the novel was written, Mexico. It takes some work to get through but was nevertheless an interesting read.

Shown in flashback, Charles Abbott, an American, remembers his involvement in the Cuban revolution in the 1890s. The hero is callow and self-important, but Hergesheimer does a good job of evoking the beauties of Havanna and the horrors of the Spanish rule there. There is also a (nonsexual) man/man love story which is interesting.

This was a substandard book, that would not be published in modern times. It is a bit unclear as to why Hergesheimer wrote this book and published it in 1919. Hugh Walpole would live and publish for another 20 years, and most of his work was written after 1920.

Hugh Walpole. An appreciation is only about Walpole's early novels and about his book-length non-fiction study of Joseph Conrad. It provides a sketchy, incomplete description of Walpole's life and then goes on to describe his novels show more and other works as published prior to 1919.

Hugh Walpole. An appreciation is poorly organised, as descriptions of the same novels is repeated in different places. Descriptions of the novels by Hergesheimer are followed by blurbs as copied from the covers of books or advertising materials. This gives the book a very slap dash impression of being thrown together.

Despite its poor quality as a work of literary criticism, Hergesheimer does seem convinced of the high quality of the work of Walpole, and mainly praises his work. show less