The Duchess of Malfi received generally scathing reviews. William Archer, England's chief proponent of Ibsen's new drama, took advantage of the occasion to lambast what he saw as the overestimation of Elizabethan theatre in general. In 1919, the Phoenix Society revived the play in London for the first time in two decades. The production featured Cathleen Nesbitt as the Duchess; Robert Farquharson played Ferdinand. The production was widely disparaged. For many of the newspaper critics, the failure indicated that Webster had become a "curio"; T. S. Eliot, conversely, argued that the production had failed to uncover the elements that made Webster a great dramatist—specifically
Peter Craven (literary critic) Heyward with whom he founded "Scripsi", a literary magazine which ran from 1981 to 1994. Peter Craven (literary critic) Peter Craven is an Australian literary critic and cultural studies writer. Craven has written for "The Age", "The Australian" and the "Australian Literary Review". His work has also appeared in "Oxford Guide to Contemporary Writing", the "Times Literary Supplement" and "London Review of Books". Craven has been described as both a "literary hack" and "one of the most prolific, erudite and opinionated voices in Australian literary circles". In 2004 he was awarded the Pascall Prize for Australian Critic of the Year.