When the Book Review Went Really Harsh

From its very first issue in October 1896, the Book Review liked to deliver blunt edicts — and, as you’ll see, even blunter headlines. An 1898 review of George Bernard Shaw’s collected plays asserted that “he has not a touch of the poetical in his composition, and the critic and satirist who is not a bit of a poet cannot reasonably hope to win wide renown as a dramatist.” In 1907, Theodore Dreiser’s “Sister Carrie” was dismissed as “a book one can very well get along without reading,” and in 1908, L.M. Montgomery’s “Anne of Green Gables” was panned because the main character “greatly marred a story that had in it quaint and charming possibilities.”

These reviews all had one thing in common: They weren’t signed, which led — no surprise! — to an abundance of potshots. In fact, it wasn’t until 1924 that the Book Review decreed all reviews had to have bylines.

February 25, 1912

March 10, 1900

June 14, 1902

March 14, 1908

December 3, 1904

October 3, 1908

July 20, 1907

September 19, 1908

May 25, 1907

March 14, 1908

June 15, 1913

September 28, 1907

June 14, 1902

February 22, 1908

May 14, 1911

May 5, 1912

Tina Jordan is the deputy editor of the Book Review and co-author of “The New York Times Book Review: 125 Years of Literary History,” which will be published in the fall.

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