In fascination by horror, that enjoyable emotion, [The Dark Daughters] does remarkably well. And there is an original flavour in the form of a kind of crazy brusqueness that we much appreciate. The story of The Dark Daughters is terrific. Mansell Roberts was the son of a farmer, a man who, after financial catastrophe, "remained isolated in Biblical studies" for the rest of his days. His son, reacting from his early home life, developed an overriding ambition to make money…. Well, the long and the short of it was that he killed both wife and mistress with his Turk-like tyranny and all his miserly tricks. They both died of broken hearts. And then … he was left alone with his three daughters….

All three of them, spinsters of vitriolic temper, and all deeply corroded by the years of hatred and oppression at home, rose up like adders from the grass, rounded upon their father and took over command. From then onwards Mansell is hounded by his daughters to his grave. He locks himself in the turret to avoid ever seeing them, and emerges only at dead of night, with lamp held aloft, to descend into the cellars and visit his grim "secret"—the magnificent coffin he keeps down there in readiness. What a film all this would make! Especially after the snow has descended upon the ill-omened house, which it does halfway through the book. The macabre quality of the snowy landscape is magnificently described, as it shines under the moon in "spectral caverns static in a strange blue-white lustre." And within doors the daughters are all in terrific form. This is—not a study in hatred, for it is not a realistic book—but a revel in hatred, of the kind where the protagonists run mad in silver brocade, and where sometimes "the flesh of their faces seems burned away and their heads are living skulls." Laura (a fourth daughter who has escaped to the stage) brings her suitor down for a visit, and we soon find him retiring to the bathroom to take cocaine—and who shall blame him? A rich tale this, told with a thunderous gusto and a flourish unimaginable.