SOURCE: In Evelyn Waugh: The Early Years 1903–1939, W. W. Norton & Company, 1986, pp. 114–19, 296–99, 344–49.

In the following excerpt, Stannard discusses some of the short stories as they relate to Waugh's development as a writer and his career as a novelist.

The ‘novel’ which had begun as a ‘cinema film’ was knocked into shape as a long, avant-garde short story. ‘I have finished my story’, [Waugh] noted on 26th August, ‘which I have called “The Balance” and took it to be typed. It is odd but, I think, quite good.’¹ Christopher Sykes states that it was, in fact, rather bad. That is unfair. The tale, of course, lacks the accomplished touch of Waugh's later stories and he himself thought it second-rate. It has never been reprinted. But, at the lowest estimate, it is an arresting piece of experimental writing and was recognised as such when it appeared. From a biographical viewpoint...