SOURCE: Foreword to Rotting Hill, Methuen and Co., Ltd., 1951, pp. vii-xii.

In the following essay, the foreword to his volume of stories Rotting Hill, Lewis characterizes his work in the collection as showcasing the "universal wreckage and decay"prevalent in politics and social life in post-World War II, socialist Britain.

If I write about a hill that is rotting, it is because I deplore rot. For the decay of which I write is not romantic decay. But specific persons or Parties are in no way accountable for the rot. It is either the fault of everybody or of nobody. If we exist, shabby, ill-fed, loaded with debt (taxed more than any men at any time have ever been), let us recognize that the sole explanation of this is our collective stupidity. If it soothes us to pin the blame upon our masters, past or present, by all means...