SOURCE: A review of Book of Orm, in The London Quarterly Review, Vol. XXXIV, April & July, 1870, p. 525.

In the following excerpt, a reviewer presents a mixed appraisal of The Book of Orm.

Buchanan's Book of Orm has been written, as appears from a note of the author's, whilst ill-health has weighed upon him. This has prevented the volume from being published in a complete form. “A Rune Found in the Starlight,” “The Songs of Heaven,” are written, but cannot, in Mr. Buchanan's present state of health, “be made perfect for press.” “The all-important ‘Devil's Dirge,’” also, we are informed, is wanting in the present edition.

The body of the volume is divided into ten sections, each section being made up by a number of poems, mostly very short. “Orm the Celt” and his “Visions” appear, in a shadowy, uncertain, phantasmatic way throughout the book, the outline or method...