"Here is your risky and almost fatal experiment of marriage, your linking of unequal natures, your development of the inevitable triangle, your cool but ruthlessly explicit presentment of sex in action.
"[9] A New Zealand review concurred: "The husband is a pitifully weak, indeed quite contemptible character, and however a woman like Shelagh Lynch could have married—and forgiven—such a man passes my comprehension.
Some of the minor characters, however, are more pleasing creations and the author’s style is so fresh and attractive that his (or her) future works will be looked forward to with pleasurable anticipation.
[10] A review in The Nation and Athenaeum was critical of her handling of psychology, commenting: “'Marius Lyle's' workmanship is too lazy and slipshod to carry out its adventurous and difficult task".
A review in The Spectator states: "This novel chiefly deals with the mental procurement of a family of children who are left motherless—though by no means fatherless.The clash of temperaments inherited respectively from the father and mother is the chief motive of the book.
The new book is again a psychological study of temperament, of passion, and of tragedy, and is no less distinctive than the first, which brought the author a substantial money reward and no little literary fame.
A review in The Spectator described this as "A cleverly written story about a peculiar county family of great charm but considerable eccentricity and even unpleasantness.
Many of the incidental scenes, ranging from London and Paris to Tangier and the Argentine, are vivid and piquant, and the story displays considerable powers of analysis.
"This story of an unconventional middle-aged woman is rich in substance and implications, and the author's swift almost cinematic technique helps in present Amy Speer's life through the impact of many significant episodes and impressions.
[19] One critic has cited Lyle, along with Edouard Roditi, Charles Henri Ford and Harry Crosby, as a representative writer of the prose poem-dreamscape, which "displays a strong oratorical strain as well as a tendency to dwell on apocalyptic visions and various psychopathological states".
[20] Her transition essay Scheme for Physical Improvement of Writers' Medium ”succinctly summarizes the typographical effects and possibilities of the most analytical aspects of cubist literature".
[23] The State Library of Victoria, Australia, holds two travel diaries dated 1905 to 1912 and 1927 belonging to Una Maud Lyle Smyth.