Readers of Leslie Fiedler's writings in the little magazines during the past half decade or so may well have wondered whether this brilliant young writer would make his book-length debut in fiction, poetry or the essay, for his lively talent encompasses all these genres. As it happens, this first book ["An End to Innocence"] is a collection of essays, yet its abundant variety draws upon a sensibility at home in all the literary forms. Here are political analyses, travel reportage, literary criticism—and yet the unity of a single theme and a single personal tone are sustained throughout.

Fiedler is a rare kind of literary critic these days: he reads books as if they were an experience in life, and he examines the documents of life (like the reports of the Hiss-Chambers trial) with the minute scrutiny that critics usually bestow only on the sacred literary canon. And...