[In The Unspeakable Skipton Miss Hansford Johnson proceeds to a] celebration of Daniel Skipton's doom. That is what the novel is about. From the very beginning, from the time Skipton hears and sees, through his pocket mirror, Dorothy Merlin say of him, "Why is that man like a carrion crow," you know Skipton is lost. Not that you care. Insufferable in victory, magnificently spiteful and enraged in defeat, Skipton on his death bed conquers, but only esthetically, his gross tormentors.

It's amazing how well all this is brought off. At first reading, I put the book down as a better than competent but not a great work. It is not great but it is so very accomplished that any comparison with the competent is an injustice.

Skipton is presented as unspeakable but we are persuaded, though never told, to like him. And yet never once, no, not for...