SOURCE: Review of The Moorland Cottage, in The Athenaeum, No. 1208, December, 1850, pp. 1337-8.

In the following assessment, the anonymous critic praises The Moorland Cottage for its "wholesome moral."

There is little risk in predicting that this Christmas book will divide public favour with the Rhenish adventures of 'The Kickleburys.' Nor is there much hazard in saying that Mary Barton was not more unlike Becky Sharp than Combehurst is dissimilar to Cologne, Coblenz, Caub, and all the other C's of the Rhineland to which Mr. Thackeray has done the honours.

The Moorland Cottage, like Mary Barton, is a tale of passion and feeling, developed among what may be called every-day people:—but, unlike Mary Barton, it is not a tale of class-sufferings and class-interests. It is merely a story intended to soften the heart and sweeten the charities at Christmas time by the agency of pity and sympathy...