Published 1921
Approx. 66,000 words
(First read 05/05/2011)
THE CRITICS
One wonders whether the recent discussion of the memoirs put forth by the prototype of Mr. Benson's original Dodo have had an influence in leading him to give us a picture of Dodo in middle age, during and after the Great War. Whatever the reason, we are glad to find her still chattering away with the utmost cheerfulness, saying clever things half consciously and half instinctively, audacious, kind to every one, even to the intolerable German Prince and Princess she is called on to entertain just as war begins. Here is what Dodo at the age of fifty-five liked: "I like the fox-trot and going in an airplane and modern pictures
which look equally delicious upside down, and modern poetry which doesn't scan or rhyme or mean anything, and sitting up all night." Dodo, with all her liveliness and social impudence, is a large-hearted, generous soul. Readers liked her a generation ago, and they will like her now.
~R. D. Townsend in
The Outlook (US), 05/10/1921
