SOURCE: "Whimsical and Bizarre," in The New York Times Book Review, November 25, 1951, p. 5.

Goyen is an American critic, short story writer, and novelist. In the following review, he contends that Fancies and Goodnights contains a "savagery of humor and coldbrained irony " yet is infused with tenderness and sympathy for the human condition.

The special readers who are John Collier's constituency—and no doubt many, many new readers—will relish this collection of his odd and whimsical and bizarre stories and pieces [titled Fancies and Goodnights]. There is in Mr. Collier's stories a cruelty, a savagery of humor and cold-brained irony which our time seems to produce abundantly. Yet beneath this glacial consideration of the human situation there lies very often a shy and genuine tenderness which, if it ever got good hold of one of Mr. Collier's stories, could quite demoralize it. But Mr. Collier's art lies in...