SOURCE: “A Welsh Joyce,” in TLS, May 7, 1993, p. 20.

In the following favorable review of Selected Stories, Wroe concludes that “despite offering no solutions, little hope and a vision of almost unremitting bleakness, these stories remain vibrant and are curiously refreshing.”

Caradoc Evans, who died in 1945 after a career as a draper, writer and journalist, gloried in his own description of himself as “the most hated man in Wales”. John Harris, in his excellent introduction to this collection, illustrates some of the ways this, entirely accurate assessment manifested itself. He had, “his books suppressed, a play howled down in the West End, a radio talk banned by the BBC and a portrait on public display knife-slashed across the throat”. It seems strange that someone who, comparatively recently, could arouse such strong feelings should today be virtually unknown. But his work leaves no doubt as to why he elicited these...