[Mrs. Benson] is light of touch, neat without being thin, deft in construction, and quick to perceive pathos as well as absurdity. Her dialogue [in "Emily"] is so skillful that you can't resist the temptation of reading it aloud; her epigrams so satisfying that you catch yourself trying to work them into your own coversation.

She has the keenest possible eye for the small change in which women demand back the gold of their lives. She is not anti-feminist—most of her women are not bad at heart, but she knows just why they drive their men wild, and just when. In spite of her skill and wit, she preaches as stern a moral for the woman of her day as did Maria Edgeworth for her contemporaries.

Katharine Simonds, "Suffragette's Niece," in The Saturday Review of Literature (copyright © 1938 by Saturday Review; all rights reserved; reprinted by permission), Vol...