[Taking in] questions of philosophy, history and literature, touching—often wittily—on hundreds of famous personages and appealing, I should think, to anyone interested in the play of two first-rate minds…these volumes recall to us something forgotten these days: the charm…of scholarship when it is the easy tool of men who are more than scholars.
-- Clifton Fadiman The New Yorker

It is tempting to compare the two Homers—to distinguish the finer edge and more consummate scholarship of Pollock’s mind from the larger humanity and the more travelled experience of the mind of Holmes… The editing by Professor Howe is admirable; and a full and careful index makes browsing easy and profitable.
-- The Manchester Guardian