SOURCE: A review of Winter in the Air, and Other Stories, in The Spectator, Vol. 195, No. 6652, December 23, 1955, p. 877.

In the following excerpt, Jennings finds that the stories in Winter in the Air reflect Warner's perceptivity about people and her strong sense of place.

Winter in the Air, by Sylvia Townsend Warner, is a very impressive book indeed. Every story shows sensitiveness in the good sense—that is, awareness of all the possibilities of a character or a situation, swiftness in reaching the honest conclusion. Miss Townsend Warner is, above all, interested in what people feel when they find themselves in certain situations—a woman returning to the place where she has been happily in love ("Hee-Haw!"); a boy almost, but not quite, embarking on his first love affair ("Evan"); a miserable, egotistical woman living in reduced circumstances ("Under New Management"); a writer discovering that a young man who...