did and it sold rapidly. Poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning praised City of Magyar as "word painting". Scholars have credited Pardoe with helping to create an enduring positive impression of Hungary in England. Her book on Francis the First was commended for being comprehensive, covering both his public and private life. However, her study of Marie de' Medici was criticized as diffuse and unfocused. In her later years, Pardoe's work was known to vary greatly in quality. According to The Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art in 1857, her Hungarian travelogue compares favourably with her earlier books on various cultures, exhibiting "deeper research; its statistics are peculiarly accurate, and it is on all hands admitted to be one of the best books of travel submitted to the public." The magazine also noted the usefulness of Pardoe's The Hungarian Castle (1842), which consists of three volumes of Hungarian folklore, "filling up a very little known page in the legendary history of Europe". In 1858, J. Cordy Jeaffreson stated in Novels and Novelists that Pardoe had been "favourably circumstanced for the development of her intellect," for "delicate health at an early part of her life secured her the quiet retirement necessary for meditation and study, and her extended travels have supplied her susceptible mind and retentive memory with the best possible materials for thought." Joseph Johnson included Pardoe in his Clever Girls of Our Time: And How They Became Famous Women (1862). His piece on her begins, "With few exceptions, Famous Women have all been Clever Girls. From their infantine years they have been celebrated for a love of books: for the perseverance which marked their pursuit of knowledge: for intense industry in their studies, and the eagerness with which they followed that which had become the end and aim of existence." He concludes that Pardoe's life and entire literary career, "its industry, its perseverance, and its unswerving continuance, are beyond all praise, as they are worthy of all emulation." Bibliography The Nun: a Poetical Romance, and Two Others (1824) The City of the Sultan (1836) Romance of the Harem (1839) Thousand and One Days (1857) Louis XIV and the Court of France (1847) Court of Francis I (1849) Lord Morcar of Hereward (1829) Speculation (1834) Traits and Traditions of Portugal. Collected during a residence in that country (1834) The Mardens and the Daventrys (1835) The River and the Desert; or