Like the other books in the Sac Prairie Saga, ["Bright Journey"] stands by itself as a separate story. But it does not differ essentially from Derleth's previous novels of man vs. wilderness, and, despite some temperamental variations, [the principal character] Dousman strongly resembles Baron Pierneau, American-born scion of French aristocrats ("Wind Over Wisconsin") and Pierneau's cousin, Count Brogmar, Hungarian patriot exile ("Restless Is the River"). There is, indeed, a disturbing sameness, at more than one level, in Derleth's historical novels, and though he can present the background material of his stories vividly—the wilderness, the fresh lakes, the Indians with their dignified poetry of speech, the brave little frontier towns, the "voyageurs" or trappers—the background material comes to give the effect of presenting again and again the same moonrise or forest-clearing or the same conversation between repeated characters. The reader of the entire series begins to wish that August Derleth would concentrate his talent on fewer volumes and strive a little more for depth, a little less for breadth. These restrictions do not apply to the novels when read singly: like the others, "Bright Journey" is an excellent and sometimes beautiful presentation of frontier Wisconsin.
Harry Thornton Moore, in a review of "Bright Journey," in New York Herald Tribune Books, October 27, 1940, p. 20.
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