SOURCE: "Kay Boyle's High Country: His Human Majesty," in Twentieth-Century Literature, Vol. 34, No. 3, Fall, 1988, pp. 363-74.

In the following essay MacNiven praises His Human Majesty as a near perfect novel that is well balanced, with a great tone.

When Hugh Ford quoted Glenway Wescott's comment on Kay Boyle, "She was more completely abroad than the rest of us," he wanted to emphasize the extent of her commitment to Europe, the fact that she had gone quickly beyond the role of expatriate to become wife and adopted daughter of France, Austria, Germany. Adopt Europe she did, despite the fact that she took with her for her art the vision of the innocent American woman, female counterpart of Henry James's Christopher Newman, a vision that has never left her. From each of her three husbands Boyle received a portion of Europe. She went to live in France in May 1923 as...