Patty's Perversities

"In her latest novel, 'A Fair Barbarian,' we find Mrs. Burnett amid still other scenes and characters; and here she seems likely to eclipse, at least as far as popularity is concerned, all her earlier triumphs. The title of the story is in itself a most happy conception. The 'Fair Barbarian' is a young American lady who has lived in Nevada, and who comes upon an English country town with the suggestive name of 'Slowbridge,' to astonish its inhabitants by an individuality of character wholly unique.... The raciness of the scenes that attend the meeting of these parties is indescribable. This American girl is not an untamed hoiden by any means: she is, on the contrary, true-womanly in the best sense of the term. She is kind of heart, sympathetic, and self-respecting,--a really lovely, if a somewhat unconventional person. She is high-spirited too; and, while she manifests a willingness to learn the standards of those among whom her lot is temporarily cast, there is a charming youthful dignity about her which is one of the best points in her delineation. Of course she finds her lover. Of the results that attend his wooing, we leave the reader to learn from the story. The merit of the novel is largely in its admirable purpose, and the exquisite skill with which it is carried out. It is a refreshing vindication of the American girl, whom it has been too much the custom of writers to depreciate of late. Mrs. Burnett knows her well, and does her ample justice. She knows England too, and we have the benefit of that knowledge in the types of English character presented.

"Her book is likely, not only to succeed in favor beyond her own previous productions, but to gain a popularity which none other of those novels which have treated this phase of the American-girl question have obtained."--_Boston Journal._

"If a more amusing or clever novelette than 'A Fair Barbarian' has ever been given the American public, we fail to recall it."--_Pittsburgh Telegraph._

"The 'Fair Barbarian' is that charming indigenous production of ours, 'an American girl,' who goes to England, and makes John Bull open his eyes in surprise, and frequently admiration."--_Louisville Courier-Journal._

"Mrs. Burnett fascinates her readers without appearing to make an effort, and plays upon the human heart at will, making it thrill and vibrate under the magic influence of her genius."--_New Orleans Democrat._

"We have no hesitation in saying that there is no living writer (man or woman) who has Mrs. Burnett's dramatic power in telling a story."--_New-York Herald._

"The brightest and wittiest of Mrs. Burnett's stories."--_Baltimore Every Saturday._

"A particularly sparkling story, the subject being the young heiress of a Pacific-slope silver-mine, thrown amid the very proper petty aristocracy of an English rural town."--_Springfield Republican._

"Mrs. Burnett's new and charming story, which is much different from, and much better than, 'The Lass of Lowrie's.'"--_Philadelphia Evening News._

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