This gifted writer, whose novels are warmly cherished by an inner circle of admirers, has gradually earned much wider fame through his short stories. Since he writes like an angel that has browsed on the finest pastures of English literature, this is only proper. His exquisite and vital style combined with a strong dose of cynicism and a highly individual propensity for abnormalities—both the supernatural and the all-too-human kind—makes of him a remarkable teller of modern "Contes Drolatiques."

Let no one make the mistake, however, of gulping down whole this new collection of twenty-three stories. They should be taken singly. Otherwise the reader must surely suffer from severe indigestion, so richly spiced and strongly flavored is most of the material. And, besides, it is possible to shudder only a certain amount. That by-now-famous tale of the man-eating orchid entitled "Green Thoughts," for instance, is so sharply and cynically humorous and so vivid as well as so horrible that it leaves one in no mood to progress immediately to the gentler, more bucolic story of the odious performing pig, Mary. Some of the items included here are considerably less successful than others. Mr. Collier is magnificently able to stretch one's credulity—descents into hell, hallucinations, jinns in and out of bottles occur naturally—but the behavior of the ominous bird that hatches out of the egg of Mrs. Spalding's parrot is somehow not quite acceptable. Nor do I personally believe for a moment in the dreadful fate of Mr. Carter in "Thus I Refute Beelzy," despite the superb last sentence and although the ghastly retribution indicated was far too mild a punishment for such a progressive parent. Another minor objection, the two stories "Variation on a Theme" and "Collaboration" seem rather too obviously to have been worked up out of the same material.

If it were possible to describe a murder story as both jolly and ingenious, such a label would fit beautifully the adventures of the young man who hid in a trunk. Here again as in that lively study in economics, "Witch's Money," Mr. Collier proves himself masterly in inventing appropriate retributions. This story, one of the most perfect in the collection, is set in a small village in the remotest south of France. The villagers succumb to an extraordinarily strong temptation when they learn that a check, though merely a piece of paper, when taken to a bank will produce cash. It is a profound and galvanic anecdote.

Probably for some tastes a certain number of these stories may seem overcharged with an oblique and sometimes leering eroticism—such as "Bottle Party," for example, or "Possession of Angela Bradshaw." No such objection could be taken to the neat, astringent sketch entitled "The Chaser" with which the volume closes. Here the rosy figure of Eros, energetically plucked, is laid out as unattractively as a stewing chicken in a refrigerator. And, while "The Invisible Dove-Dancer of Strathpheen Island" is a love story with a tragic ending as well as a fairy tale and the study of a ridiculous man, this piece of fantasy is so delicately and so well constructed, written with such restraint and magic that its pitiful and romantic qualities are infinitely more apparent than its other ingredients. The tragic element is uppermost too in the painfully simple tale of poor Albert Baker who fell hopelessly in love with an "artificial young lady" in the window of the department store where he worked. The pathetic courage and endurance of this ridiculous fellow, the hopelessness of his case in a world determined to rob and despoil him of his treasure are beautifully, mercilessly indicated. Here the author displays those rarer talents which illuminate his best novels. His propensity for the grotesque, his unquenchable and insane humor are more evident in "Rope Enough" and "Squirrels Have Bright Eyes." In the first one, new and amusing uses are made of the familiar discussions about the Indian rope trick. In the second, the hopeless devotion of a pallid young man for an Amazonian lady takes a sudden, if slightly improper, turn for the better. Like most of this material, it is cruel. But it could not possibly be mistaken for the work of anybody else.