SOURCE: A review of In Ole Virginia, in The Nation, Vol. 45, No. 1160, September 22, 1887, p. 236.

In the following review of In Ole Virginia, the critic praises Page's creation of the Southern hero and use of Negro dialect.

Collectively, Mr. Page's tales entitled In Ole Virginia form an epic historical and tragic. After reading them we see one figure with the certainty and distinctness of actual vision. Called by no matter what name, that figure is always the same—a young man, exquisitely fine of nature, gentle, chivalrous, hot-blooded, at once the pink of courtesy, courage incarnate, and honor's self. He can think no evil, much less do it. Born to lordship, his life-path cut straight through gardens of roses that never fade almost before he comes to his own, his princedom is but an empty name: the roses are all thorns; he falls before the cannon's mouth, his dead...