[In this review of Fishmonger's Fiddle, Ould notes the unusual vision of the world that is expressed in Coppard's stones and lauds the subtle craftsmanship of the author's work.]

Mr. Coppard's stories are not, like so many short stories, the by-product of a novelist. He is primarily a writer of short stories, and so far as I am aware has never written a novel. By confining himself to a single form—I leave verse out of the reckoning—he has attained [in Fishmonger's Fiddle] a sureness of touch which is in striking contrast with the tentativeness of his first volume, Adam and Eve and Pinch Me. We now find no echoes of his preferences in literature: what he offers us is pure Coppard. His work is not, as Maupassant's is, objective. The world he paints is a world seen through his own whimsical-serious personality. If Maupassant was a perfect mirror in which was reflected a flawless representation of the section of life that came within his range of vision, Coppard is a somewhat bent and irregular window-pane, through which we are permitted to see a world, self-consistent but queerly changed, fantastically distorted in some directions and arbitrarily emphasised in others.

It is a tribute to his skill that we rarely pause to question the verisimilitude of his stories. The narrative, however improbable judged by normal experience, carries its own conviction, and it is only on those rare occasions when the author, detaching himself from his story, obtrudes his own person that we begin to doubt. A case in point is "The Watercress Girl"—a story which I thought was going to be the best of them all. In Mary McDowall Mr. Coppard draws a character of tragic power. She has flung vitriol into the face of her rival and is standing for her trial. I am not going to try to give a synopsis of the story, but will content myself with stating that towards its conclusion, the rival being out of the way, the lover comes back to Mary and is repulsed. So far one is convinced. The lover is pressing; Mary continues to resist. "I'll come again tomorrow," he says. "No, Frank, don't ever come any more," she replies. "Aw, I'm coming right enough," he cries.

"And I suppose we must conclude that he did," is Mr. Coppard's comment. Whereupon the whole thing collapses. When an author abdicates from godhead and confesses ignorance of the doings of his own creation, he immediately loses his hold on the reader. Expunge this last sentence, and "The Watercress Girl" would in my judgment be one of the best short stories of recent years.

It is not characteristic of Mr. Coppard, fortunately, to assume anything but omniscience. "Fishmonger's Fiddle," which gives the book its title, is an incredible enough story of a man going into a fishmonger's shop with a 'cello under his arm and thereupon inconsequently arousing the romantic impulse in a girl who—when it comes to the point—has not the courage to reach out her hand for the boon which the gods are offering her. There are no "I supposes" about this. The tale is narrated as if it really happened and the reader is fain to believe. I almost wrote "the listener is fain to believe," for indeed most of the stories in this volume are like tales that are told aloud. They have the inconsequence and apparent irrelevancies of spontaneity, and it is only in retrospect that one realises how subtle is the art which has gone to their writing; for in truth there is little that is irrelevant in Mr. Coppard's work. The introduction of what appear to be irrelevancies is his way of filling your mind with the required atmosphere or of chaining your attention. It is not for nothing that he describes an incident like the following, although it has no obvious link with the story he is telling:

A few cherries had spilled from one basket and lay on the ground. The little furry mouse had found them and was industriously nibbling at one. The higgler nonchalantly stamped his foot upon it, and kept it so for a moment or two. Then he looked at the dead mouse. A tangle of entrails had gushed from its whiskered muzzle.

You will get from this and similar passages what appears to be the Coppard attitude to life: It is a chancey, nonmoral affair, in which pointless suffering plays a large part, but humour and compassion will see you safely through it. "Pour moi, un livre c'est un homme. " That can certainly be said of "Fishmonger's Fiddle."