Out of Russia, where Hugh Walpole had been serving with the Russian Red
Cross, came this strange, wonderful, exotic book, containing an
inexplicable treasure of beauty,--the glamour of the Russian forest, the
scent of blossoming orchards, the wistful heroism of young Russian
soldiers. _The Dark Forest_ would be an astonishing performance if only
in this--that Walpole has conceived and written a _Russian novel in
English_. But there are scenes that are the most vividly realized
moments of which Walpole has ever written. Scenes which the
_Westminster Gazette_ calls "the equal of the most dramatic passages in
English fiction." Mystical, poetical, spiritual, the theme of _The Dark
Forest_ is the triumph of the soul over death. One may read in it an
allegory of the soul of Russia.
"To say that this book is remarkable is only to lay hold on a convenient
word as expressive of at least a part of the sensation the story
produces. Here is a book for which many of us have dimly waited; a book
that transcends the outer facts and reveals the inner significance of
war. _The Dark Forest_ is a love story of unusual beauty, as well as a
story of war. Who, having read it, will forget this book; at once awful
and beautiful? It must be read, for neither quotation nor description
is capable of giving more than a bare hint of the nobleness, the
intensity of this work of art so deeply rooted in reality."--_New York
Times_.
"Of all the novels that have come out of European battlefields there is
probably none of such scope, such penetrating analysis and such
completely spiritual quality as Hugh Walpole's _Dark Forest_. It is many
novels in one.... It is instinct with the sense of spiritual adventure.
It is young, finely emotional, stamped with the consciousness of beauty
and infinity, of heroism and horror, love of life and the vision of
death."--_Eleanore Kellogg, in The Chicago Evening Post_.
"At last there issues a novel with qualities of greatness and the
promise of endurance. Hugh Walpole's _Dark Forest_ should, indeed, as a
work of literary art, easily survive the terror and the turmoil."--_New
York World_.
"Dostoievsky compressed within a few pages. A remarkable book
indeed--beyond doubt the most notable novel inspired by the war."--_New
York Tribune_.
"_The Dark Forest_ is the first fine story product of a high order of
creative art we have had from the European war."--_Boston Herald_.
"The very spirit of Russia is here. This is unusual. Walpole appears
to have become gifted in a few months with the true Russian literary
method. Its magic is his."--_Boston Transcript_.
"It is a story of sustained power; tragic import and impress, and
careless disregard of western conventions. The rapt mysticism and
unselfish devotion of the heroine; the downright, uncompromising
materialism of her Russian lovers; the pathetic appeal of Trenchard's
loyalty, and the situation finally developed by the heroine's untimely
taking off--these, in connection with the continually recurring episodes
of grim war, afford large opportunity for originality of treatment and
characteristic, forceful dramatism."--_Philadelphia North American_.
"Such a novel needed the war for its background. It needed the war for
its origin. It could only have been planned on the battle line. It
could be written for and appreciated by only such an audience as has
been prepared by the melancholy of catastrophe. War's blood is in it,
war's nerves and sinews. It is the very soul, upheaved, bereft, of war.
It is the one great romance that has come from a world of armies."--_New
York Evening Sun_.
"_The Dark Forest_ is a novel of extraordinary beauty and power.... It
is a work of art, unqualifiedly a great book."--_Review of Reviews_.
"Hugh Walpole's _The Dark Forest_ is the best story yet written about
the war that we have read."--_New York Globe_.