Writing in the "Saturday Review", H.G. Wells criticised Gissing for not including "some flash of joy or humour into its gloomiest tragedy", thus reducing "life to... the" genre "of nervous exhaustion".
Writing in the "Saturday Review", H.G. Wells described "Eve's Ransom" as "remarkably well done". Wells suggested that this was a recurring issue with Gissing's novels, which reduced them "from the faithful representation of life to... the" genre "of nervous exhaustion".