"Tyl Ulenspiegel is not yet, in most English households, an old
friend. Yet we believe that the fellow will soon make his brave and
humorous way into the friendship of old and young. And the twenty
full-page woodcuts with which M. Albert Delstanche has illustrated
this edition will help the friendship on. All the heartiness, the
ruggedness, the fun, and the gloom of one tragic period in the history
of a homely and much-enduring people are expressed through the eye
to the mind by M. Delstanche's knowledge and skill."--The Times.
"An excellent translation has brought a notable example of modern
Belgian literature within the reach of readers in this country. Taking
as his central figure the scampish Tyl Ulenspiegel, already in the
sixteenth century a traditional personage, De Coster produced a
remarkable reconstruction of Flemish life in the days of Spanish
oppression and of the famous 'Beggars'."--Scotsman.
"On the large scale, the obvious work of a master, a man who knew
sorrow but who loved to share the mirth and good living of his fellows,
mocked impostors wherever he found them, and had a hatred of cruelty
and injustice that is like lightning. It is one of the rare books,
full of sad laughter and warm understanding, of the order of 'Don
Quixote'."--The Nation.
"It is a happy thought which has brought out Mr. Geoffrey Whitworth's
version of 'The Legend of Tyl Ulenspiegel' now ... for the
description of it as the 'national epic of Flanders' has much more
meaning than such phrases usually have.... And all the adventures
of Tyl and his friends have this quality of reality in fairy-land,
whether they are grotesque or tragic. The book has tragedy in it
to balance its boisterous comedy, but the two are combined in a
style whose generosity and exuberance make their union complete
and satisfactory. It is a great book indeed. Mr. Whitworth is to be
congratulated on his excellently easy and vivid translation; and the
woodcuts of M. Albert Delstanche are all exceedingly impressive and
many exceedingly beautiful."--Land and Water.
"It is hardly too much to say that De Coster's book is a work of pure
genius.... At such a moment as the present no publication could be
more timely than this English version of what will inevitably rank as
a great epic of Belgian nationality.... For the rest, we have only to
compliment the publishers, the translator, and the illustrator upon
their joint efforts to present a fine work in a worthy and acceptable
form."--The Guardian.
"The illustrator's bold and luminous drawings certainly catch the
bluff spirit of Charles de Coster's quaint masterpiece, in which the
transition-age between mediaevalism and modernity lives again so grimly,
so shrewdly, so humorously. Here there is a suitable gift-book for all
who love to travel in the highways of world-literature."--Morning Post.
"It is, of course, for adults and not for children, with its grim
horrors and its full-blooded jollity. What we have learnt to call the
soul of a people is in it--the spirit of Flanders. The force of De
Coster's style loses nothing in Mr. Geoffrey Whitworth's translation,
and there are admirable illustrations cut on the wood by M. Albert
Delstanche."--Daily Telegraph.
"A most remarkable volume."--Glasgow Herald.
"Reading it for the first time in Mr. Whitworth's admirable English
version, one is amazed at first that it has not been rendered
previously. De Coster will never require another English version,
and this one book of 'glorious adventures' is aureole enough to ensure
his place on the great hierarchy of literature."--The Bookman.