To use the word "old-fashioned" in describing [Harvest Comedy] is to praise it highly, for it is old-fashioned in the sense that it tells a gripping story and that it gives to each character a scrupulous care that is reminiscent of the method of Dickens…. The story traces the careers of [the three main characters] in London, with their various ups and downs, their marriages and their love affairs, but it does much more than this: it shows us the inside of every life…. In another sense, too, the book is old-fashioned in that the good boy comes out on top while the two bad boys, who seemed to flourish like the green bay tree at first, got their deserts. But even for them, with their very human weaknesses, Mr. Swinnerton arouses sympathy; and, although the ending of the book could, in other hands, read like a Sunday...