As a vehicle of her opinions, the scheme and style of the poem proved completely adequate.

She moves easily through the story; she handles her metre with freedom and command; she can say her say without exaggeration or unnatural strain.

Further, the opinions themselves, as those who have learnt to know her through her letters will feel sure, are lofty and honourable, and full of a genuine enthusiasm for humanity.
As a novel, 'Aurora Leigh' may be open to the criticism that most of the characters fail to impress us with a sense of reality and vitality, and that the hero hardly wins the sympathy from the reader which he is meant to win.

But as a poem it is unquestionably a very remarkable work--not so full of permanent poetic spirit as the 'Sonnets from the Portuguese,' not so readily popular as 'The Cry of the Children' or 'Cowper's Grave'-- but a highly characteristic work of one whose character was made up of pure thoughts and noble ideals, which, in spite of the inevitable change of manners and social interests with the lapse of years, will retain into an indefinite future a very considerable intrinsic value as poetry, and a very high rank among the works of its author.
At the time of its publication its success was immediate.

The subjects touched on were largely such as always attract interest, because they are open to much controversy; and the freshness of style and originality of conception (for almost the only other novel-poem in the language is 'Don Juan,' which can hardly be regarded as of the same type as 'Aurora Leigh') attracted a multitude of readers.