SOURCE: A review of The Romantic Egoists, in The New York Times Book Review, May 16, 1954, p. 4.

Stern was an Irish short story writer and critic. Here, he discusses The Romantic Egoists, admiring the book's innovative design and skilled characterization.

[The Romantic Egoists] reveals Louis Auchincloss as a writer of unusual brilliance. In it he combines a Henry Jamesian knowledge of upper-class New York society with an economy of style, an alertness of eye, an artful disarming modesty reminiscent of the stories of Christopher Isherwood. Mr. Auchincloss, however, does not carry a camera; he sees, or rather sees through people, with the piercing lens of an X-ray. Peter Westcott, the "I" of The Romantic Egoists, is a young man in whose company, one feels, even silence might not be sufficiently discreet, discretion not always the better part of valor.

The Romantic Egoists is neither a novel nor, in the...