SOURCE: "Ruled by Force and Fudge," in The Saturday Review of Literature, Vol. XXXI, No. 13, March 27, 1948, pp. 18, 31.

Peden is an American critic and educator who has written extensively on the American short story and on such American historical figures as Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams. In the following review of The Collected Tales of A. E. Coppard, Peden finds the collection exemplary of Coppard's best work, demonstrating "the variety of Coppard's interests and the flexibility of his technique. "

Alfred Edgar Coppard was seventy in January last. Since 1920, his several volumes of carefully wrought tales and stories have won him a small but enthusiastic American audience. For the present volume, he has selected thirty-eight stories on which, seemingly, he wishes to let his reputation rest. The result is an important contribution to the literature of short fiction. A. E. Coppard has few equals among twentieth-century English short-story writers...