"The Oxford Companion to Edwardian Fiction" says of "Hilda Lessways", "On the whole, reviewers admired Bennett's ability to describe from a woman's point of view events he had described from a man's point of view in Clayhanger (1910)". "The Manchester Guardian" said, "It is almost incredible that two novels which have so much material in common should nevertheless possess such an absolute individuality that the effect of reading one is an immediate desire to refer to the other for new light on the situations described by both". "The Observer" called it "a meticulous analysis of a woman's life, but it is more scientific than passionate".