As an illustrator of stories of a certain type, Frank Reynolds is
without an equal. On a tale of mere incident his talent is wasted:
but into the spirit of a writer who takes human nature for his text,
the artist enters with the keenest sympathy. One is tempted to think
that the author who is so fortunate as to have Frank Reynolds for a
collaborator, must on occasion be startled at the clear vision
with which the artist materialises the private conceptions of his
mind. It would hardly be possible to find a more sympathetic series
of illustrations than those which Frank Reynolds drew for Keble
Howard's idyll of Suburbia, entitled "The Smiths of Surbiton."
The author constructed out of the petty doings and humdrum habits
of suburban life a charming little story of simple people, and
with equal cleverness the artist built up, out of these slight
materials, a series of exquisitely natural pictures, which revealed
the almost incredible fact that semi-detached villadom is not all
dulness.

Illustrators of Charles Dickens are legion, but when one thinks of
the opportunities for character-study, without that exaggeration
into which previous illustrators have been too prone to indulge,
which the works of the great novelist afford, one is inclined to think
that until we see that wonderful gallery of fanciful personalities
which began with Mr. Pickwick and his companions portrayed by the
pencil of Frank Reynolds, we shall have to wait still for the perfect
edition of Dickens. One niche in that gallery has already been
filled, and a study of the water-colour drawing of "Tony Weller
at the Belle Sauvage," which is reproduced in the present volume,
only increases our desire, like the immortal Oliver, to ask for
more.