d" can be uninteresting or unimportant ... A fine
achievement, and only a sympathetically gifted man would and
could have done it.--_The Times_.

A charming book.--W.L. Courtney (_Daily Telegraph_).

American Press Opinions of Mr. Synge's Work.

"Mr. Synge's plays are the biggest contribution to Literature
made by any Irishman in out time.... If there is any man
living and writing for the stage with youth on his side and
the future before him, it is John Synge, whose four plays....
represent accomplishment of the highest order. It is true that
these dramas do deal only with peasants, but they are handled
in the universal way that Ibsen used when he made the
bourgeois of slow Norwegian towns representative of the human
race everywhere.... it is not only in the avoidance of
joyless and pallid words that Mr. Synge has chosen the better
part. He has experienced the rich joy found only in what is
superb and wild in reality; and so it was just because 'The
Playboy' was so true in its presentation of the weaknesses--if
weaknesses they can be called--as well as the strength of his
men and women, that a furore was raised against it as a sort
of satire.... The sympathy of the dramatist with his people
makes itself felt in spite of his ability to stand apart
detachment from them."--_New York "Evening Sun."_

"'The Aran Islands'.... of vast importance as throwing a
light on this curious development.... is like no other book
we have ever read. This is not because the people described in
it are unique. With the most artful simplicity Mr. Synge gives
you first a just idea of the alternate beauty and bleakness of
that wonderful coast, and then makes you see the inhabitants
in their daily struggle for existence.... This book, with
its sympathetic insight, is the best possible return that Mr.
Synge could have made to his friends on the island."--_New
York "Evening Sun."_

"Synge is so real it is impossible to resist him. He seems to
have the masterful quality of taking a few scattered peasant
families, and giving to them a universal import.... His
plays are alive. They are real plays in real persons, and not
the least of their charm lies in the dialogue.... He is
tilling what is practically virgin soil, and already he has
demonstrated he i