SOURCE: "The Lamp at Noon and Other Stories," in Sinclair Ross & Ernest Buckler, McGill-Queen's University Press, 1975, pp. 9-24.

In the following essay, Chambers explores the pervasive sense of isolation, claustrophobia, and cramped imagination found in Ross's short fiction, particularly "A Field of Wheat, " "Cornet at Night, " and "The Painted Door. "

Between 1934 and 1952, Sinclair Ross published sixteen short stories, all but three of them in the Queen's Quarterly. Great credit is owing to this distinguished university journal for such faithful encouragement of a fledgling Canadian writer. These stories, especially those collected in The Lamp At Noon and Other Stories, comprise perhaps the most consistently excellent literary pieces to appear in Canada during the 1930s and 1940s.

Since limitation of space precludes discussing each of Ross' stories in turn, it has been necessary to treat them under general headings. Yet each repays close scrutiny, and at least three are superb...