SOURCE: A review of The Field of Mustard, in Punch, Vol. CLXXII, February 23, 1927, pp. 223-24.

In this essay, the critic praises Coppard for providing fresh interpretations of familiar themes.

The bright art of the short story has at the moment no more talented exponent than Mr. A. E. Coppard. His tales, or contes, as we should have called them in the good old days when, having never heard of Tchehov, we all swore by Maupassant, are acceptable to the most fastidious of editors. All the stories in The Field of Mustard are well worth reading, and a good half of them are worth rereading. It is not so much what he does as the cunning and lively way he does it. Take, for instance, his name-piece. Two women, returning home from gathering firewood, sit beneath a hedge and discuss a man whom they both have loved. Being no...