Although "Paul's Case" did not receive much critical attention when it was first published in 1905, it has become Cather's most frequently reprinted and read short story. A Public Broadcasting Corporation (PBS) television adaptation in 1980 revived critical interest in the story.

According to Loretta Wasserman, in "Is Cather's Paul a Case?," one reason the story has historically garnered little notice is because the character of Paul is so unlike Cather's other characters. Whereas most of her fiction takes place in the plains and prairies of the Midwest, "Paul's Case" takes place in smoggy Pittsburgh and glamorous New York. Critics have taken pains to see the story as a fitting end to the short story collection in which it first appeared, The Troll Garden. All of the stories in this book concern artists or people of artistic or sensitive temperament who cannot resist the dangerous lure of the...