[3] Frost claimed it was not until he read the poetry of Mary Shelley that he learned of "the connexion between the influence of circumstances in the formation of character and the new organization which Owen desired to give society".
Frost became an active Chartist and Owenite and although he believed in revolution he stopped short of taking part in a revolutionary conspiracy to avoid arrest.
[2] He above all desired independence and wrote that "the assumption by Mr. Gladstone of the leadership of the Liberal party in the House of Commons seemed to promise the inauguration of a new era".
[6] The magician Harry Houdini wrote that they were the "best books of their kind up to the time of their publication, but they are marked by glaring errors, showing that Frost compiled rather than investigated.
Magic historian Walter B. Gibson noted that "the information offered by Mr. Thomas Frost and his successors, concerning Frikell, is in the main incorrect and unreliable.