After reading The Dancing Floor, John Buchan's friend Greenslet wrote to the author, "I don't know when I have had more pleasure in reading one of your books. The essential fabric is highly romantic and attractive, and the handling and workmanship is, it seems to me, up to the level of the fable." The book's theme is that civilization can be reborn through its younger generation, whose innocence of the horrors of war and confidence in their ability to make a life are our hope for the future. This is also Buchan's first novel with a female protagonist; Kore Arabin is a feisty heroine who experiments with a modern lifestyle before being called to sterner duty.