The Times.—“A sketch to which the much-abused word 'brilliant’ may be justly applied. Dealing in 400 pages with a subject which is both immense and well worn, Mr. Murray presents us with a treatment at once comprehensive, penetrating, and fresh. By dint of a clear, freely-moving intelligence, and by dint also of a style at once compact and lucid, he has produced a book which fairly represents the best conclusions of modern scholarship.”

The Athenæum.—“The book is brilliant and stimulating; while its freshness of treatment and recognition of the latest German research amply justify its existence. Professor Murray has made these old Greek bones live.”

The Saturday Review.—“Mr. Gosse’s introduction to this new series, the list of his collaborators, his own wide knowledge and delicate taste, and, finally, the manner in which his first volume is executed, all assure us that whatever high hopes he may raise, we need have no fear of their ample fulfilment. Mr. Murray’s style is vigorous, and, above all, he has the gift of sympathy for the Greek spirit. He is distinguished alike for fascination and thoroughness: he commands both our confidence and our admiration.”

The Morning Post.—“Professor Murray is exceptionally qualified to deal with the difficult and important subject of that Greek Literature, which he has made a life-long study. His gifts of imaginative sympathy with ancient Greece, and his exact knowledge of her literature, are distinctly evidenced in this volume. In dealing with the tragic poets, with Herodotus, Demosthenes, and the lyric poets, Professor Murray has brought to notice much that will prove new even to the scholar, and more that will be of interest to the general reader.”

The Scotsman.—“The book speaks well for the attractions of its own subject, and promises well for the series in which it appears.”

The Daily Chronicle.—“The writer shows himself well qualified to write an illuminating history of Greek Literature, in which learning is enlivened and supplemented by literary skill, by a true sense of the humanities. The reader feels that this is no book of perfunctory erudition, but a labour of love, performed by a scholar, to whom ancient Greece and her literature are exceedingly real and vivid. His judgments and suggestions are full of a personal, fresh sincerity.”

The Glasgow Herald.—“To competent knowledge of his subject, Mr. Murray adds a power of exposition which does not always accompany great learning; and, while scholars will here find a fresh and well-digested account of all the most recent criticism of the long procession of outstanding names in Greek literature, the ordinary reader will not be repelled by excessive technicality or too numerous details.”

The St. James’s Gazette.—“Mr. Gosse is to be congratulated on having invited Professor Murray to write the first volume of this series. If the other contributors do their work as well, the success of the venture is assured. He has done no slight service to the cause of real learning as distinguished from superficial culture, and he has invested his treatise with a human interest. The book is equally solid and attractive, and abounds with happy phrases.”

The National Observer and British Review.—“The treatment of the Homeric question seems to us masterly, as an indication of the results attained by scientific analysis of language and the comparative study of early literatures.... For scholars and lovers of Greek, Professor Murray’s summary but penetrating criticism will have the charm that is always exercised by a powerful and original mind discoursing on subjects delightful to the listener.”

The Speaker.—“Vigour and freshness, great learning and independence of judgment, are the salient characteristics of Mr. Murray’s book. He has produced a work which, while it puts the English student abreast of all the latest work in classical research, may be read with pleasure by those who have not carried their classical studies beyond the point they reached at school.”

A. T. Q. C. in the Speaker.—“Mr. Heinemann and Mr. Gosse have made a brilliant start in this Series. To condense into some 400 boldly printed pages a story which is not only vast and intricate in itself, but has been complicated by the discussions and theories of more than two thousand years, and to do this without ignoring those discussions and theories, must have been a daunting task. Mr. Murray has accomplished it, and an even more difficult feat. He has written an eminently readable book.”

The Pall Mall Gazette.—“A really quite admirable book. It is full of learning, but the learning is never obtruded. Then, too, it is full of humour, not exactly racy epigram, but felicitous phrases. The style, indeed, is not the least attractive part of the book. We must also say a word of praise for the translated extracts throughout the book. They are finely selected, accurately rendered, and clothed in really thrilling English.”

The Journal of Education.—“The series starts felici omine. No brighter or more readable account of a subject so immense as Greek literature has, to our knowledge, ever been published in English than Professor Murray’s volume.... This delightful book should be of great service.”

The Spectator.—“Professor Murray soon convinces his readers that he is equal to his subject, has something fresh to say about it, and is able to say it with a quite uncommon vigour. In power of sympathy he surpasses, we think, all his predecessors. We have seldom found a book that has given us more pleasure than this.”

The Standard.—“Professor Murray does all the justice which is possible in the compass of 400 pages, to a subject so vast, subtle, and many-sided. He has written a lucid and fascinating sketch of the men and movements that shaped in prose and poetry the most splendid and influential literary bequest of antiquity. The method of the book is to realise what sort of men the Greek poets, historians, orators, and philosophers were, and to describe them in their habit as they lived. The book abounds in fresh and vigorous thought, and independence of judgment.”