The Gates Between

"Miss Phelps has again challenged attention by a story of the unseen. 'The Gates Between' is not written to solace the bereaved, but rather to impress on busy, eager, self-centered people the terrible folly of the materialistic, selfish life they are living; to electrify them with a sight of the remorse they are preparing for when they shall see as they are seen; and to recall to men's minds the supreme duty and joy of tenderness and unselfishness in word and act...The book cannot...
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"Miss Phelps has again challenged attention by a story of the unseen. 'The Gates Between' is not written to solace the bereaved, but rather to impress on busy, eager, self-centered people the terrible folly of the materialistic, selfish life they are living; to electrify them with a sight of the remorse they are preparing for when they shall see as they are seen; and to recall to men's minds the supreme duty and joy of tenderness and unselfishness in word and act...The book cannot fail to be widely read both in England and America, and it is one that cannot be laid down without having awakened deep and serious thoughts in the mind of the reader." -Pall Mall Gazette

"It is not a common 'ghost' story, or a tale of the supernatural told merely to excite interest; but an exceedingly interesting narrative of the inevitable, giving the possible experience and remedial discipline of a hard and selfish nature in the life after death." -The Dial, Volume 8, May, 1887

"Powerfully conceived....The story is that of a physician, who, dying instantaneously by unforeseen accident, finds himself in the world whose existence he has hitherto contemptuously doubted; and of his effort and difficulties in adapting himself to an environment wholly in conflict with his earthly habits of thought...Remarkable for originality, earnestness, and delicacy of thought. The questions it will raise in the mind of the reader will not cease with the closing of its pages...No physician worthy of his calling can read without emotion." -The New England Medical Gazette, Volume 22, January, 1887

"Handled with consummate tact, dignity and power...The border land between life and death; the passage of the human soul into the unknown country; its impressions on leaving the earthly tenement and its experiences thereafter. Such speculations in narrative form unavoidably approach the danger line of maudlin and lachrymose sentimentality. Attempted by other writers, they have frequently cross it with a result offensive to good taste and to that soul-reserve which well-balanced people desire to protect against intrusion, but in the delicate and sure hand of Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, dictated by a spirit both natural and refined and dominated by a serene faith, no such mistake was possible...Her books dealing with this alluring subject never transgressed the unwritten law; never offended or belittled the dignity of the human soul, but wove together the seen and the unseen, the real and the mystical, man and his other self in a fascinating, convincing and satisfying story, the reading of which brought hope, peace and comfort to many thousands." -The Bellman, Volume 10, January, 1911