"Garfield's Apprentices" opens with two stories—Mirror, Mirror and The Lamplighter's Funeral—which offer examples of cruelty and compassion, defeat and victory…. Though the tales are short and structurally simple, they will appeal mainly to children experienced enough to catch the tone of a writer's voice and listen to his unspoken message. Both tales are full of imagery—the brilliance of jewellery and glass in the first, the revelations of torch light in the second….

These are stories intended not to teach children history but to surprise them into realising that time does not change humanity very much. Leon Garfield's particular version of the London of Fielding and Hogarth offers its own private, searching history lesson. (p. 2913)

Margery Fisher, in her Growing Point, July, 1976.