SOURCE: "Richard Middleton," in his From Shakespeare to 0. Henry: Studies in Literature, revised edition, 1923. Reprint by Books for Libraries Press, 1968, pp. 221-33.

Mais was a prolific English writer, editor, and critic. In the following excerpt, he offers a sympathetic appraisal of Middleton's works.

Whether it be that famous story of "The Ghost Ship," where we seem really to see the fairy barque sailing away over the turnip field, through the windy stars, its portholes and bay-windows blazing with lights to the accompaniment of singing and fiddling on deck on the part of all the village ghosts who have been inveigled away on it, or that incident in "The Brighton Road," where the dead boy is eternally condemned to go on tramping—tramping… in all [Middleton's] stories there is an uncanny something which makes them take wing beyond the author's conception, that elusive quality which, for want of a...