SOURCE: "William Sansom and Logical Empiricism," in THOUGHT, Vol. XXXVI, No. 141, Summer, 1961, pp. 231-45.

Vickery is a Canadian-born educator and critic. In the following essay, he asserts that many of Sansom's short stories are philosophical, addressing "the nature of mind and the nature of reality. "

The fiction of William Sansom, like the poetry of Empson, has by and large not made the transatlantic crossing with any great success nor has it aroused any sustained critical interest. The explanation does not lie in his having written too little to provide a basis for judgement, for he is the author of five novels (The Body, The Face of Innocence, A Bed of Roses, The Loving Eye, and The Cautious Heart), eight volumes of short stories (Fireman Flower, Something Terrible, Something Lovely, South, The Passionate North, A Touch of the Sun, Lord Love Us, A Contest of Ladies, and Among the...