By 1994, O'Brian had become a well-known author with a high reputation for his Aubrey-Maturin nautical historical series of novels, and English reviewers of the re-issue were very complimentary of the quality of the writing.

The story is constructed from the testimonies that three witnesses give to an unnamed divine inquisitor: Joseph Aubrey Pugh, an Oxford don; Bronwen Vaughan, the woman he comes to love; and Mr Lloyd, a schoolmaster.

According to his testimony, having become exhausted and demoralised by his academic life in Oxford, Pugh decides to rent a small cottage in North Wales for an extended break, intending to spend his time walking in the hills and reading.

He throws himself into his new life, becoming friends with Emyr, son of the elderly owners of the neighbouring farm of Gelli, Mr and Mrs Vaughan.

The novel's setting is closely based on Cwm Croesor in North Wales, where O'Brian and his wife had rented a small cottage in 1945 as an escape from post-war London.

[11] In 1994, the UK version was renamed Testimonies and re-published by HarperCollins[1] with new cover art by Geoff Hunt,[2] the cover-artist for the re-issued volumes of the Aubrey–Maturin series.

The Illustrated London News thought the novel intensely personal and ghastly in a quiet way, yet full of beauty and consolation,[16] while a brief notice in the Daily Mirror called the story a jungle of human emotion, love, hate and the clash of wills.

The reader, drawn forward by lyric eloquence and the story's fascination, discovers in the end that he has encountered in a new way the sphinx and the riddle of existence itself."

The reviewer appreciated the author's handling of speech and the story's visual scene, the sympathetic portrayal of Bronwen being singled out for particular praise, with the character being compared, in some ways, with great heroines such as Anna Karenina.

[25] Writing in The Sunday Telegraph, Jessica Mann recognised O'Brian's early use in this novel of the surnames Aubrey and Maturin, and she asked how this book could possibly have been so completely neglected after its initial 1952 publication.

[26] She considered the author's evocation of place, and his handling of the characters' attitudes, motives and feelings elevated the story to one of perfect tragedy.

[26] The Independent commented on the writer's apparently effortless yet powerful evocation of emotion, and the way in which he brought very modern language to a story full of "ancient haunting purity".