Cronin is a writer of the natural, easy sort. Let us not go in for fantastical comparisons; but he works in the high tradition of Dickens and Scott. He tells a story with such gripping intensity that, reading, you feel glad that this is a book you must stay up until 2 a. m. to finish. In the morning, knowing how things came out, you feel sad that there is not more to read of this enthralling novel.

Dr. Cronin's novels in the past occasionally have been marked by lapses into sentimentality or melodrama. None has been a downright poor novel, but a few have been shaky. "The Green Years" was the best of them, until this one.

"A Song of Sixpence" is a first-person narrative told by a bright Scotch-Irish boy, surrounded by fascinating persons—all, in a true sense, Dickensian characters—in and out of his immediate...