Hutchinson's fiction is very much a product of its time and of Hutchinson's relation to his time. Hutchinson is an heir of Dickens in his treatment of social concerns: He shows social ills without recommending a political solution; rather, he believes that individual reformation is the proper path.

If Winter Comes shows the problem of unwed motherhood: The hero, Mark Sabre, believes that society is correct in its condemnation, yet he laments and cannot participate in the resultant social excommunication of a girl abandoned by her family. The self-righteousness and cruel behavior Sabre deplores typify the people around him, who despoil a peaceful landscape in the name of progress and profit, and who belittle the lower classes in the name of proper social order.

Hutchinson treats the corning of the Great War as a time of moral invigoration. The mode of the novel is similar to...