SOURCE: Eustace, C. J. “Philanderer's Progress.” Canadian Forum 14, no. 168 (September 1934): 488.

In the following review, Eustace offers a negative assessment of Defy the Foul Fiend but admits that Collier's writing evidences genius.

The writer must confess his abysmal ignorance! Before this book he had never heard of Mr. John Collier. Apparently Mr. Collier has published two other books, both of them highly praised by the reviewers in England. The names of these novels are His Monkey Wife and Tom's A-Cold. We are assured, by the reviewers of both these works, that the writer of them is a man of genius. And yet!

In Defy the Foul Fiend we are allowed a glimpse into the mind of a young man whose amorous adventures are paraded on the housetops for our edification. The mind of the young man is peculiarly degenerate, and as his sponsor into the realms of the written...