in The New York Times, Brooks Atkinson wrote "Mr Johnston does not explain; he irradiates." Set in 1927 during an attempt by the IRA to destroy an Irish Free State government power plant, a later New York Times review of the play's 1961 revival noted an "exhilaratingly mad, comic strain.". But acclaim was not universal. Irish writer and broadcaster (and later member of the Irish Senate) Denis Ireland remarked that the play's success in London was "natural enough" for "it fulfils the first law of Anglo-Irish literature: it makes the native Irish appear a race of congenital idiots." Johnston's war memoir Nine Rivers from Jordan reached The New York Times' Best Seller list and was cited in the World Book Encyclopedia's 1950s article on World War II under "Books to Read", along with Churchill, Eisenhower et al. Joseph Ronsley cites an unnamed former CBS Viet Nam correspondent who called the book the "Bible", carrying it with him constantly, "reading it over and over in the field during his tour of duty." In a profile in the New Yorker in 1938, Clifford Odets is quoted as saying that the only playwrights he admired were John Howard Lawson, Sean O’Casey, and Denis Johnston. Johnston's tribute to Dublin, "Strumpet city in the sunset," from the closing speech of The Old Lady says "No!", has achieved its own fame. James Plunkett titled his epic novel of Dublin before the First World War Strumpet City. And a travel guide written by Harvard students in introducing Dublin made a classic misattribution: "James Joyce loved his 'Strumpet city in the sunset'." The Denis Johnston Playwriting Prize is awarded annually by Smith College Department of Theatre for the best play, screenplay or musical written by an undergraduate at Smith, Mount Holyoke, Amherst and Hampshire Colleges and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The prize was endowed by his former student at Smith, Carol Sobieski. Works Stage Plays Synopses of the plays can be found at Denis Johnston on Irish Playography. The Old Lady Says "No!" (1929) The Moon in the Yellow River (1931) A Bride for the Unicorn (1933) Storm Song (1934) Blind Man's Buff (1936) (with Ernst Toller) The Golden Cuckoo (1939) The Dreaming Dust (1940) A Fourth for Bridge (1948) 'Strange Occurrence on Ireland's Eye' (1956) Tain Bo Cuailgne – Pageant of Cuchulainn (1956) The Scythe and the Sunset (1958) Biography In Search of Swift (1959) John