[The 16 stories of "Crimson Ramblers of the World, Farewell"] were written over the last 25 years, but Jessamyn West's muse is uncommonly stable, so there is no perceptible change in technique or themes. This collection has, in fact, more unity than most. Miss West writes in a classic tradition that imposes a discipline almost as rigid, and as fecund, as the sonnet form. And her ideas are as consistent as her methods. Some readers may feel a want of variety; more will welcome the cumulative, and coherent, revelation of her view of the world and of art. Collections of short stories are not often best-sellers these days; it may be because they too often lack precisely the coherence so remarkably evident here.

The vision, always consistent, is many-layered. Some of the stories deal with the complexities of simple people, and others with the simplicity of complex people; most of...