You either surrender to Mayne's spell or impatiently don't. Myself, I admire so many of his talents singly—his poet's eye and ear, his word-magic, his evocation of atmosphere—but I cannot make the surrender, and feel sure that at no age could I have done so. (p. 708)

Geoffrey Trease, in New Statesman (© 1966 The Statesman & Nation Publishing Co. Ltd.), November 11, 1966.