Trevor's skill in sketching vivid scenes and the physical appearance of his characters suggest the influence of the London novels of Charles Dickens. The Irish stories also invite comparison to Chekhov's portrayal of family and rural life in Russia.

Inevitably Trevor's work is compared to that of James Joyce, as they share the experience of an Irish childhood and later emigration to England where both began their careers as writers. Trevor, as a Protestant outsider, however, views rural Catholic life much differently than does Joyce. Also, his clear, straightforward language has little in common with Joyce's linguistic experiments.

His work is also ranked with that of masters of the British short story, V. S. Pritchett and Anglo-Irish writer Elizabeth Bowen. Some critics compare Trevor's stories of provincial Ireland to the rural American South of William Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor.