The early Bainbridge dwelt on each moment, was too explicit; when a character spoke, he also made a physical gesture or his hair shone in the sunlight, and his inner thoughts and his effect on his audience were carefully explained…. In the earlier version [of Another Part of the Wood] events moved so slowly, because of her overwriting of each moment, that reading it was like wading through treacle.

The conciseness of the cut version is a great improvement. The pruning of adjectives sometimes goes too far—'her little teeth set like pegs between her violet lips' makes more sense than 'her teeth set like pegs between her lips', which is merely grotesque. Pegs can be any size. And I miss some of the proliferating Sixties details, such as that awful song 'When you come to the end of a lollipop, plop goes your heart'. But repetitions are...