The collection Spring Sowing, which contains the story "The Wave," was O'Flaherty's third book. The first two were novels, Thy Neighbor's Wife and The Black Soul. Although the first of these was well received, the reviews of his second book were mixed at best, infuriating O'Flaherty, who would always consider it one of his best works. In the May 1, 1924, edition of Times Literary Supplement, an unsigned review of the book stated that "the chief characteristics of Irish novels of the present day seem to be an angered sincerity, an impatience with shams, and an endeavor to express actual life even at the cost of literary or technical excellence." But O'Flaherty did not feel he'd sacrificed anything, and on May 2, 1924, he wrote to his friend Edward Garnett: "One writes as one sees or else one is a mountebank . . . I will write in the future for the satisfaction...