On its publication in Britain, Burmese Days earned a review in the New Statesman from Cyril Connolly as follows: "Burmese Days is an admirable novel. It is a crisp fierce and almost boisterous attack on the Anglo-Indian. The author loves Burma, he goes to great length to describe the vices of the Burmese and the horror of the climate, but he loves it, and nothing can palliate for him, the presence of a handful of inefficient complacent public school types who make their living there....I liked it and recommend it to anyone who enjoys a spate of efficient indignation, graphic description, excellent narrative, excitement and irony tempered with vitriol."