Rather dated, a little sexist and at times slightly tiresome with the concentrated and contrary wit from Lord Goring, who is quite clearly based on Wilde himself. That said, the convoluted plot in so short a play is clearly a work of genius, many lines of dialogue shine and the witticisms brought a few smiles to me over a century later. I preferred Earnest and the Canterville Ghost slightly more, but this is still quite a masterpiece. 4.5/10

Utter twaddle from beginning to end. Unfortunately, it's quite well-written twaddle and led me to believe that some profound revelation was perhaps coming at some point, rather than the facile and stupid 'rousing' ending. The "we" thing quickly became tiresome too. Even though Anthem is short, I still found it a total waste of my time.

As with the Importance of Being Earnest, I enjoyed this very much. It's short, entertaining, funny and ultimately rather heartwarming. A little simplistic perhaps, but still easily a good 4.5 out of 5*.

Very thought-provoking for such a short story and highly-prophetic too, given the era in which it was written. I found the first chapter particularly clever and atmospheric.

The Kindle version I read was downloaded from ManyBooks, somehow 'Americanized' and contained at least 25 typos where the OCR had messed up. Ironically, I couldn't help thinking it was 'like a book but not quite a book' but instead just "good enough." 4/5

A very silly story, told very well, although the language used was rather 'baroque' in its overuse of adjectives and descriptions. This story comes in three parts, building up the tension nicely, but the 3rd part eventually annoyed me with its over-ornate, superficially compunctional pericombobulations.

Aaaaagh! The ending was missing! The story, though rather linear, was entertaining and written with RLS' usual style and wit. Set in the early 1800s, the story is told from a first person perspective, following St Yves the French prisoner's journey up and down the length of England. Compared to Treasure Island, St Ives is a little pedestrian and hardly jam-packed with derring-do, but I liked it better for that. Apparently, there is an ending written by Arthur Quiller-Couch, which I would like to read as the story was probably only a few pages shy of its exciting denouement.

I have never read (or watched) any Sherlock Holmes stories, and even though the title of this one didn't sound especially scintillating, it was actually surprisingly enjoyable. The mystery is about as deep as can be expected for 33 pages, and it reads a little like Victorian CSI in places, but I think it has converted me into a slight Holmes fan.

A strange and faintly amusing parable that seems to have a serious message about economic mechanisms and communism somewhere hidden behind the jocular premise about the crocodile itself. Well-written and hardly boring, but if the intention was for it to be viewed as deep and provocative, then it's a somewhat clumsy attempt and misses the mark. If it was written to just imply some deep message, in such a way as to skirt around Russian censorship, then maybe it was very clever and brave for it's time, but despite a few witty passages, it still didn't really strike a chord nowadays to this reader.

An interesting little story that moves along nicely, well-written, but with a sudden, somewhat unfulfilling ending. 7/10

An agreeable read, but rather like an absurd 1950s episode of The Twilight Zone.