SOURCE: A review of The Astronomer and Other Stories, in Virginia Quarterly Review, Vol. 42, No. 2, Spring, 1966, p. xlviii.

In the following review, the critic offers a positive assessment of The Astronomer and Other Stories.

In this collection of seven stories and a novella, Mrs. Betts once again reveals those qualifications which place her among the finest writers of contemporary fiction. For, as in her previous short stories and novels, she continues to demonstrate not only her great powers of observation and imagination, her feeling for time, place, and character, but also a wonderful sense of form and structure without which writers seldom achieve lasting distinction in their creative work. In the novella, The Astronomer (the title piece and three times longer than any other selection) Mrs. Betts introduces an originality, a depth and richness of content, not possible in shorter pieces. In this beautifully structured narrative in which...