SOURCE: “A Human Standpoint,” in The Open Night, Longmans, Green and Co., 1952, pp. 109-16.

In the following essay, Lehmann provides an overview of Lewis's life and work.

The first thing I knew of Alun Lewis's death was when I was rung up from the editorial offices of a daily newspaper, and asked if I could write a short obituary note. The news was a great shock to me, and I found it quite impossible to say anything then and there. Up to that moment the war had seemed miraculously to spare the young English writers and artists whose work I most believed in; but in that moment I knew there were going to be no miracles, and my mind was trapped in a miserable foreboding. But I was also embarrassed by the newspaper's request, because I had never met Alun Lewis, though we had corresponded for several years...