SOURCE: "William Sansom," Modern British Writing, edited by Denys Val Baker, The Vanguard Press, Inc., 1947, pp. 281-91.

In the essay below, Mason focuses on the stories in Three, contending that these works demonstrate Sansom's attempt to unify parallel strains of realism and allegory in his work.

Elaborate yet compact, the specimens so far published of this arresting writer have begun to shape themselves into a pattern calling for examination by critics wary for important developments in modern literature. It is naturally early to make ambitious claims for Sansom's work; but he is, in his way, prolific, he keeps his name regularly before the public in the reviews which those sympathetic with his general aims are most likely to read, and he is establishing a reputation as a writer who is guarding and cherishing a distinctive province of his own with an almost solicitous exclusiveness. It will not be...