When it first appeared, Tempest-Tost struck one as a pure, delightful jeu d'esprit, quite what one would expect from the typewriter of Samuel Marchbanks. A funny book. In 1958, it stands as the first of three novels about the same Ontario town of Salterton, and this makes a difference. Novelists who return repeatedly, as Trollope did, to the same place or the same broad circle of characters, achieve in time a stereoscopic depth that can be attained in no other way. Tempest-Tost can now be seen through the stereoscope, and it is still a funny book, but it is a good deal more. (p. 56)

[The relationships between the characters] make for straight comedy in Tempest-Tost. In Leaven of Malice they dominate, and take on a darker hue….

Essentially the book is about the efforts of the aged and unbalanced to fetter and cripple the sane and young. And though...