The Sands of Pleasure was written in five weeks at a rate of nearly 20,000 words a week. It was apparently finished on October 11 and was in the bookshops by November 22. Some years later, Filson claimed he had never written anything so earnestly or honestly, or so much for sheer joy of artistic expression.

"The portraiture in the whole story is singularly and impressively human, and sympathetic without exaggeration."—The Globe.