Naar de Engelse editie. Uit een review van de oorspronkelijke Engelse versie (Carla Hurt):
"What makes Septimus so important is that it is perhaps the earliest modern Latin introductory reader that figures some definite features of the “progressive” style of textbooks. The most striking example of this is its use of gorgeous 1930’s-era cartoon illustrations. The book follows a single running storyline about a British schoolboy, Septimus, who steps through a magic door and gets transported back in time to the reign of the cruel and unpredictable Emperor Nero. The prologue is written in English, but as soon as the boy enters the portal everything is narrated in Latin and the boy somehow speaks naturally with perfect Latin grammar. The story moves along quickly and is actually very well written, thanks to Chambers’ and Robinson’s vivid descriptions and playful dialogue. I’m very glad that the publishers chose to run with these illustrations. McCall’s drawings really make the story “pop” out at you. When you turn a page and see a new picture, you get a taste of what’s going to happen in the immediate future if you could just keep reading a little more. I particularly love the way McCall pictured the scene in which Septimus descends to the underworld à la Aeneas and orders Charon, the ferryman, to take him across the Styx. These are, by modern standards, “progressive” ideas; but even as Septimus prefigures a lot of the features of the progressive movement of Latin textbooks, it also has a “conservative” tilt in that the “Aids to Translation” section at the back of the book strongly recommends students to look for the main verb and the subject of the sentence first before looking up words in the vocabulary at the back. Septimus thus becomes an interesting blend of both conservative and progressive schools of thought in Latin textbooks. (Bron: https://foundinantiquity.com/2014/04/15/septimus-a-latin-novella-from-the-1930s/ )