Except for its sharpness of observation and its delicate humor, there is little to connect the author of "National Velvet" with this informal diary, written when Miss Bagnold was 19. For reasons which now seem incomprehensible, the publication of "A Diary Without Dates" produced a flurry in wartime England and caused Miss Bagnold's dismissal from the military hospital where she was working as a V.A.D. It is true that her book … shows a certain hostility to the sisters who were Miss Bagnold's superiors, but otherwise it could only have been offensive in that it was too clearheaded and realistic to please contemporary patriots.

Considering her youth, considering the feverish emotions of the period, one is amazed at Miss Bagnold's immunity to the traditional bunk about war. Her book is not sentimental, nor does it babble of heroism and glory. She records, merely, the impressions of a very...