 Writing in "The New Yorker" on 4 March 1950, Mortimer's grandniece Rosalind Constable called the book, "one of the most outspokenly sadistic children's books ever written" referring to her great aunt's belief in the need to impress upon children the pains of hell that would result from wrongdoing and the rejection of salvation.Like many women writers, her books initially appeared anonymously, as "By the Author of 'The Peep of Day.