AustLit

H. M. Green's A History of Australian Literature : Pure and Applied (1961): 261 observes: 'Brunton Stephens's A Hundred Pounds (Melbourne, 1876) is just the sort of thing that might have been expected from Stephens, not quite at his best: a playfully humorous love story, half spoilt by a quite unnecessary melodramatic element. There are the same easy going urbanity, the same ingenious verbal quips in the manner of Hood, the same mixture of reality and bookishness but nothing like the power of Stephens's principal poems or the wit of the best of his others; it is pleasant and readable nevertheless.'