Judging only by the stature and intricacy of ["The Stars Look Down"], one would incline to think of the author's career as meteoric. This has not been the case. Like most great achievements the book is the culmination of lesser endeavors, experiments in the medium embodying a restricted philosophy, a personal moral. It is the logical development from "Hatter's Castle," Dr. Cronin's first novel…. "Hatter's Castle" was a passionate but unsatisfying book, both in style and subject matter more imitative of the Victorians than integral to our own world. Its interest was chiefly pathological and the suffering described was of a world apart, understandable only as the conclusion drawn from a possible but peculiar premise. One was conscious of a straining to be forceful as if the author were trying to overcome in himself a natural remoteness from human problems.

In this new novel, the remoteness is of...