Victor Sawdon (V. S.) Pritchett is an eminent man of letters who has published extensively in different genres; his work includes five novels; numerous volumes of short stories, many of which have been published in prominent journals over the last fifty years; critical commentary on authors who are at the foundation of the Continental literary canon; and several impressionistic volumes of travel commentary. Pritchett--like Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound, and Henry James--spent years away from his native country, but unlike those other writers, Pritchett stands aloof from the literary experiments in style and thematic content which characterize their work. As far as his literary merits are concerned, Pritchett has a genuine talent for colloquial dialogue and idiom, and his vivid portraits of middle-class English life provide a great deal of social commentary although his auctorial voice lacks the psychological depth of a Henry James.

Pritchett may very well be...