SOURCE: “New Novels and Stories,” in The New Statesman and Nation, Vol. 25, No. 630, March 20, 1943, pp. 191-92.

In the following essay, Toynbee praises Lewis's stories in The Last Inspection but offers reservations about the authenticity of Lewis's depiction of war.

Had Mr. Alun Lewis spent as many years in the army as Mr. Phelan spent in prison, his stories might have achieved the same assurance and unity. But where Phelan moves almost too slickly among his “mugs” and “grasses,” Lewis is less at ease with “Jerry Planes,” “Civvy Street” and the “Boss Class.” His reactions to army life are intensely interesting, for he is the 1943 equivalent of Siegfried Sassoon and Robert Graves. As a prose-writer he is inferior to both, but his reactions may be contrasted. Graves and Sassoon were civilised human beings, outraged by the stupidity and horror of trench warfare. Their reactions were more or less clear-cut...