AustLit

'For children of somewhat older growth, Ethel Turner has an irresistible appeal. In this book the authoress has drawn a girl who is not merely a girl, but is girlhood, too. To follow Nicola, the heroine, in her first glimpse of a large city, and through her first shopping ecstasies, is girlhood at its best. Nicola has a dream of writing a beautiful book (most girls have at one time or an other) and she does: and the telling of how she does it, and what experiences go to the making of the book, is a beautiful book itself.'

Source:

'Have You Read?', The World's News, 15 November 1924, p.14.

'Another story of the lovers whose history is now forming a series of readable romances. [...] They have not as yet reached the end every reader has in view for them, and Brigid is in Paris for most of the time, where the Cub spends such leave as he can get. The end of the section comes in England, and is brought about by the news of the armistice and the admission thereby of the Allies' victory.'

Source:

'Brigid and the Cub' [review], The World's News, 27 December 1919, p.29. (Via Trove Australia)

'The Cub goes to Gallipoli and speedily wins promotion, being the youngest captain in the forces. The life there is well depicted, and so is the great evacuation. The main theme of the book, however, is the love story of the Cub and Brigid, which is charming and idyllic, and entirely unlike the modern style'.

Source:

'Captain Cub' [review], The World's News, 3 November 1917, p.29. (Via Trove Australia)

'The hero of this book is a young Australian, similar in some respects to boys we have all met, and the whole of his family are people we know, and appreciate. He has the ways of well-brought-up boys, and this in various directions, being by no means what the great humorist would have called a Sunday school book boy, but just as full of fun and mischief as he ought to be. The war is in the air all the time, as it could but be in an Australian household, and is brought close in a way by reason of the fact that one of the servants is a "Hun" girl, with decidedly bigoted national feelings. There are also other connections, such as a returning wounded soldier, and a good many who go away, and even the young hero has his ideas as to the relative merits of "Belgian" and "Allied" ties for his neck. Altogether one of the best of the long list of good books from the same pen.'

Source:

'John of Daunt' [review], The World's News, 14 October 1916, p.29. (Via Trove Australia)

'Miss Ethel Turner has written a war-time story of very considerable merit and has chosen as was to be expected to develop the greater portion of the action in Australia, but the story is none the less a war-time story on that account. The tale is happily conceived and delightfully told, and there is not an uninteresting page in the book. It opens in Brussels, at the beginning of the war, when a young English girl, after some thrilling adventures, rescues a little Belgian girl—Josette—from a cruel fate. The Eng- lish girl, Brigid Lindsay, makes the ac- quaintance of the Calthrops, a wealthy Australian family, the younger son of which is the Cub of the title. The scene and the actors shift to Australia, and we are given a number of pictures of Australian patriotic activities in war time. Much againist his mother's wish, the elder of the Calthrop boys volunteers for active service, and falls in action, and the last chapter closes with the departure of the Cub to fill his fallen brother's place. The whole interest centres round the Cub, who is a youth of unusual mental equipment, and possesses ideas of his own on some pressing social and eco- nomnic problems, which are not of conven- tional type. He is in consequence regarded by his friends as "queer." Brigid is a fitting foil to the Cub and is in some respects quite as unconventional.'

Source:

'Literature: A War-time Story', The West Australian, 16 December 1915, p.5. (Via Trove Australia)