[26][27] Mary Diana Dods, who had also been working on a translation of "Der Freischütz" when Popular Tales was published, wrote to William Blackwood that the translator was Browning (Eileen Curran suggests this may have been a transcription error for Bowring[28]), who Dods knew, and considered a good man, but a "thorough pac'd Hum-drum".

[30] The Eclectic Review also complimented the title page illustration for volume one, calling it "a fine specimen of both design and execution"; they claimed that they did not have the leisure to analyse the book, but that of the stories, "some of them are good of their kind", singling out "Wake not the Dead" as "an appalling and well-told tale", "The Bottle-Imp", "The Treasure-Seeker" and "The Spectre Barber" as "good specimens of old wives' stories", and stating that "The Collier's Family" "pleases us much".

[31] The Literary Chronicle and Weekly Review said the book "will afford an ample treat" to those who can "relax from the severity of graver studies, or who love to recal [sic] to memory some of the delights of their childhood", with selections from "Wake not the Dead" ("a dreadful tale of vampyrism") and "Kibitz" ("of a light and amusing character").

[34] In the United States, The Port Folio mentions the book as one of three published around that time that were part of "a great rage at the present in the English reading public for German tales of 'Ghosts and Goblins.

'"[35] Less favourably, John Gibson Lockhart reviewed the book for Blackwood's Magazine, calling it disappointing and saying that it "will do a great deal more harm than good to the popularity of German literature here"; he criticised the selection of stories, "The Sorcerers" and "The Victim of Priestcraft" are given as examples of the "perfect trash" chosen, with most translations said to be "miserable, bald, and even grammarless English" probably caused by "utter laziness and haste", while "The Fatal Marksman", "The Collier's Family", "The Bottle-Imp", and "The Spectre Barber" are said to be among the "few good stories" which are "comparatively speaking, done as they deserved to be".

[40] Volume 1's "The Bottle-Imp" was said by literary scholar Joseph Warren Beach to have been a source of inspiration for Robert Louis Stevenson's short story "The Bottle Imp" (1891).

[45][42] Zeydel considered the "Auburn Egbert" translation "usually fair", but that it "fails to attain literalness, often produces a false effect and is not infrequently inaccurate", while calling "Elfin-Land" an extremely loose translation that becomes freer and more inexact as it progresses until it can almost be called a rough paraphrase, taking "inexcusable liberties" while "essential touches are omitted" in an arbitrary and unreasoned way.