J.I.M. Stewart is a retired fellow of an Oxford college and My Aunt Christina is a book of short stories, each with an academic ring. Ostensibly tales of the unexpected, denouements can in fact be easily guessed. As a consolation the collection turns into an Eng. Lit. kit, with allusions made to other works. The Aspern Papers is behind Aunt Christina's secret trove and also 'The Doctor's Son', in which a vicar's annotations are found to be brilliant pieces of textual criticism. The Picture of Dorian Gray is the progenitor of Perley's pictures—by an artist who paints not what he sees but what will be seen. Michael Furey, the singer, is the name of the plaintive voice who sang to Gretta Conroy in Joyce's 'The Dead'.

Roger Lewis, "Left-Overs," in New Statesman, Vol. 105, No. 2722, May 20, 1983, p. 27.∗