SOURCE: "Notes on Four Contemporary Writers," in Personal Remarks, Liveright Publishing Corporation, 1953, pp. 193-209.

In the following excerpt, Strong offers a brief survey of Myers's career, commending the maturity and insight that, in his view, distinguish The Root and the Flower.

It may seem odd to call contemporary a writer who is dead and whose most important work dealt with a life immeasurably remote from ours. Yet the true test of contemporaneity is that a book shall be timeless, and therefore as true today as it was when it was written and when it was imagined. Provided it comes from a deep enough level, it will deal with what is essential and permanent in life and character, and so will never be out of date. The best work of Leo Myers has this ageless quality.

Not long ago, when I was talking to J. B. Priestley about various...