Miss Boyle is a storyteller, a superb one; by and large, the best in this country, and one of the best now living. This somewhat belated point of view concerning her work emerges clearly, it seems to me, in this present volume of her collected tales [Thirty Stories], especially as they have been arranged chronologically and according to background; according, that is, to the country in which they are laid….

[The] early stories are mostly interesting as a study in the emergence of an artist; an artist with a beautiful command of language, a unique gift for striking metaphor, granted as a rule only to poets, and a passionate, impelling drive. An artist, original, rebellious, and bitterly observant…. On the whole, these stories are not completely successful. That was the way they struck me when I first read them many years ago; and that is the way all but one, "Friend of the Family," strikes me now. "Friend of the Family" is a beautiful story, delicate, straight-moving, and filled with implications, and is Miss Boyle at her best and in full control of her equipment. But the remainder of this group seem to me all implication, vague and confused, and not at all clear in the mind of the author….

It is when she goes to Europe, or, rather, when she begins to write with a European background, that she comes into her own…. These stories have a sure touch; the touch of a master craftsman. A sure direction. They go places, whether you do or do not always agree with them; whether or not you find, at times, the faults, the reverse side, of Miss Boyle's virtues, too much metaphor; at moments, too much calorescence, too much heat. She has an eerie gift of bringing completely to life the European background; Austrian, English, French, and of bringing to life the people who live there…. [The] more of a story she has to tell, the better she is….