Fifteen years after her death Isak Dinesen seems to be little read in this country. She has become a cult figure without a cult. Few modern writers of comparable status can have been so neglected. No doubt her work has proved hard to place because it is eccentric in kind. But more than that, the stories on which her reputation must rest, while superficially accessible, demand, if they are to be properly understood, a degree of attention and interpretative effort only likely to be accorded to a writer of acknowledged "importance"….

[Dinesen's short stories] can differ greatly in emphasis and effect, but they tend to be roughly similar in mode. The opening sentence will be a fine romantic flourish…. The characters will be exotic: princesses, cardinals, poets, actors, painters, singers, seafarers. But the developing tale will lack the simple narrative thrust that these elements seem to promise. An...