[The theme of Three is not] in its way, an original theme: but Miss Ashton-Warner certainly brings it to life. She gets the inextricable tangles of selfishness and real love in all her people with convincing truthfulness; she doesn't judge them or bother about what God may think of them; she just creates them as human personalities caught in a real human situation. Which, in this reviewer's humble old-fashioned opinion, is what the novel is for. (p. 183)

Patrick Cruttwell, "Fiction Chronicle: 'Three'," in The Hudson Review (copyright © 1971 by The Hudson Review, Inc.; reprinted by permission), Vol. XXIV, No. 1, Spring, 1971, p. 183.