Nobody would argue that vintage Waugh lurks in any of his short stories or that we meet there anything like the magisterial wit of A Handful of Dust, Ninety-Two Days, or The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold. Short forms tempt Waugh toward his melodramatic, schoolboy-rag side—he needs more room to develop nuance and the appearance of sympathy with his characters. Still, [Charles Ryder's Schooldays and Other Stories] is a worthwhile collection of short pieces if not a startling one, eleven of the twelve stories having first appeared in book form as far back as 1936….

Twelve stories for $12.95, plus tax. It works out to about $1.13 per story, certainly moderate as reading matter goes today…. But even Waugh's most frantic admirers would have to admit that some of these stories are worth less than $1.13. "Cruise" ("Letters from a Young Lady of Leisure"), with its repeated tag-line "Goodness how sad," I'd...