[Fifteen] years after "Black Lamb and Grey Falcon," Miss West publishes a new novel ["The Fountain Overflows"], a real Dickensian Christmas pudding of a book. In fact, it is very like Dickens. It is as full of characters—odd and even, but mostly odd—as a pudding of plums; full of incident, full of family delights, full of parties and partings, strange bits of London, the Iobby of the House of Commons, a classic murder with portraits of the murderer, the murderee and a couple of innocent bystanders, bill collectors, kitchen fires, good food, and a considerable quota of ghosts…. In short, this is a very novelish sort of novel—old-fashioned, busy and extremely readable. (p. 1)

[The] most remarkable thing about "The Fountain Overflows" is how good, how enjoyable a book Miss West's talent makes it. It is extravagant and melodramatic and full of coincidences in quite the...