Seeing how enjoyable and fresh are the greater number of these new short stories [in The Trip to London] by Mr. Rhys Davies, it is perhaps ungracious to begin by saying that too many short stories are being written now. But then, too much of everything is being written; there are too many novelists, the poets are too many and portentous, and wherever a cat jumps there are only too many observers-on-the-spot ready to whip out their notebooks. Inspiration seems to lie very thick on the ground in these days of despair. One wonders why. But as to the short story, it is possible that the form suggests itself to the unsuspecting as easy to manage, easy to trick.

Mr. Rhys Davies is anything but unsuspecting; on the contrary, he is a most accomplished, skilful writer, who in his best work shows himself again and again as complete...