SOURCE: "A Conversion to the Real World," in The New York Times Book Review, November 7, 1982, pp. 12, 44-5.

In the following review of When Things of the Spirit Come First, Bair briefly outlines the merits, flaws, and overall significance of Beauvoir's stories.

These stories, written during the years 1935-37, when Miss de Beauvoir was between the ages of 27 and 29, appear at an appropriate time. An exploration of her entire canon and its impact is long overdue and particularly timely today, when many of the spheres of intellectual thought and political activism in which she played a seminal role are undergoing major shifts: for example, the feminist movement, which is clearly seeking redefinition and new impetus.

Simone de Beauvoir is generally regarded as one of the leading feminist theoreticians and intellectuals of our time. Her fiction has had both critical and commercial success in many languages, and her nonfiction has...