The achievement of William Alexander Gerhardie (originally Gerhardi) consists in seven fine novels and an engaging autobiography, which span only two decades, the 1920s and 1930s. His childhood in prerevolutionary Russia and hence his knowledge of Russian as well as German and French literature not only influenced the subject matter of many of his books but also shaped the ironic no-man's-land between tragedy and farce which his characters inhabit. Gerhardie had considerable success early in his career, but his general popularity has never matched the praise he received from eminent writers. He won the admiration of established literary figures of the day, including Arnold Bennett, H. G. Wells, Edith Wharton, and George Bernard Shaw, and influenced the generation younger than himself. Evelyn Waugh wrote to Gerhardie: "I learned a great deal of my trade from your own novels," and Graham Greene described Futility as having left "an indelible...