Ten essays, consistently controversial, that range widely between a long one, in six parts, on Dickens, shorter ones on boys' weeklies', H.G. Wells, comic postcards, Kipling, Yeats, Dall, Koostler, detective stories, Wodehouse. In answering criticism, in defining his own theories, the author provides stimulating ideas, on modern trends, American influence, current values, and literary criticism- among others. The Kipling and Dickens articles re-evaluate the men and their books in terms of their times and mental atmospheres; the Yeats and Dali are book reviews; the Wodehouse is a defense of the man as a Quisling and the reasons he could not be one; the Koostler and Wells examine their failure to maintain their status; the boys' weeklies and detective story a study of the symptoms of the moral degeneration of these days; the comic postcards a defense of the open vulgarity of their kind. A personal, serious, but never dull analysis that has a definite worth in its challenges, in its integrity.
