SOURCE: "Sophisticated Fantasy," in The New York Times Book Review, May 13, 1928, pp. 9-17.

In the following review, the anonymous critic calls Armed with Madness "a sophisticated and most exquisitely written fantasy. "

When two or three years ago Mary Butts published a first novel called Ashe of Rings the few who read it were at once excited by its talents and puzzled by its contents; for here was a truly strange, a memorably strange feat of imagination which failed somehow to make sense. There was much beauty in the writing; there was much eeriness about the atmosphere; there was individuality to the characters. But what was the theme of the book (if, indeed, it had one) or on what milk these people had been suckled or of what past crimes the estate of Rings was guilty, no one could tell.

Now Miss Butts has published her second novel and...