SOURCE: "Mr. Lardner's American Characters," in The Dial, Vol. LXXVII, No. 1, July, 1924, pp. 69-72.

Virginia Woolf's Laudatory Review of You Know Me Al:

When a crack player is in the middle of an exciting game of baseball he does not stop to wonder whether the audience likes the color of his hair. All his mind is on the game. So Mr. Lardner does not waste a moment when he writes in thinking whether he is using American slang or Shakespeare's English; whether he is remembering Fielding or forgetting Fielding; whether he is proud of being American or ashamed of not being Japanese; all his mind is on the story. Hence all our minds are on the story. Hence, incidentally, he writes the best prose that has come our way. Hence we feel at last freely admitted to the society of our fellows.

That this should be true of...