James did discuss Story's most significant works, the statues Cleopatra and the Libyan Sybil.

James quoted from fine letters written to Story by the Brownings and other noteworthy friends.

As James put it in a letter to William Dean Howells: "There is nothing for me but to do a tour de force, or try—leave poor W.W.S.

Critics have generally been kind to this book, perhaps because they realize how difficult it is to write a biography on an insignificant subject.

The Encyclopædia Britannica, for instance, calls the book "an entertaining account of Story's life in Rome.