Bennett anticipated that the collection would help to establish his stature as a writer, showing that he could rise above what he termed his "potboilers".

Some critics focused especially on the macabre story "In a New Bottle", with the Staffordshire Sentinel calling it "nasty" and The Bookman terming it "grotesque".

[2] "Simon Fuge", not having been written for what Bennett called the "unperceptive stupidity"[3] of the magazine audiences, was able to be bold with its themes and approach.

[4] Later critics have been kinder to the collection's key story, with Margaret Drabble calling "Simon Fuge"... "one of the greatest short stories in the English language",[5] and John Wain remarking that... "it says as much as a novel, it says easily as much as a novel of a hundred thousand words could say on this theme" and naming it... "the best thing that Arnold Bennett ever did.

"[6] Despite few reviews and lacklustre sales of The Grim Smile of the Five Towns, the deft work of Bennett's literary agent meant that the book's new stories proved to be very profitable.