The characteristic qualities of detachment and insight which we find in Rhys Davies's work are particularly exemplified in his more recent novels and stories…. It is noteworthy that in these novels and stories he continues to surprise the reader with some new setting, some new situation, or some sharply observed character which both particularises and illuminates his theme.

Davies's talents as a novelist have never been shown more impressively than in The Painted King (1954). The skeleton of the novel is the story of Guy Aspen, an immensely successful writer-producer-actor of London musical comedy. (p. 55)

Around this regal figure of show business, Davies creates three or four characters, people very much in their own right, from whose perspective we see Aspen's character piece by piece. There is Guy's dominant mother, the singer and old trouper, Madame Annie, Guy's assistant, Judith Cottar, and Jorgen, another of Guy's retinue. All these subsidiary characters have a firm grasp of reality which eludes Guy Aspen, increasingly incapable of differentiating between the real and the tinsel world of his musical comedies.

Davies's story explores both the half-world of London bed-sitters and apartments …, as well as the backstage of theatreland with its feverish rivalries and ambitions. (pp. 55-6)

At the heart of The Painted King is Guy Aspen's personality. (p. 56)

Yet for all his apparent worldly success, the victors in The Painted King—and there are usually victors and losers in Davies's novels and stories—are Judith and Jorgen. It is their love that encloses and puts in its proper perspective the artificial kingdom of the stage that Davies has created in this novel. Another striking character of Davies's creation is Eva Pritchard, chard, heroine of The Perishable Quality (1957). We meet her at the beginning of the novel as she makes her escape from London back to the South Wales town of Bylau, a reversal of the escape route followed by Rhys Davies's earlier heroes…. (pp. 56-7)

The structure, the pattern of the book is dictated by the reasons for Eva's flight from London to Wales. But the memories of Elwyn Hughes, Mr. Dai, and the vanished way of life in Bylau they represented give a full, deep characterisation to Eva Pritchard. As in Davies's earlier novels, the process of self-assessment in this central character enables Eva to free herself from her insistent lover, who follows her to Wales. That way, she recovers her freedom. It should be emphasised that the development of the novel is thus quite dependent on Eva's character, and not on some extraneous development of the admittedly interesting plot.

However, this portrayal of Eva Pritchard is given a new perspective with the theme of Bylau revisited, and the writer's objective portrayal of Iolo Hancock and his friends. There is a continuing refinement of Davies's style here, as he rigorously excludes intrusive comment, and concentrates with a cold, hard clarity on the character of Eva Pritchard. She is certainly one of the most sympathetic of his heroines.

This paramount concern with character emerges once again in Girl Waiting in the Shade (1960). In this novel, Lottie Curlow, English, middle-class, victimised by her family, plays out her destiny against a tapestry of family ambition and sexual misadventure. (pp. 58-9)

In this novel, as in his other recent works, we see that Davies's quality of inventiveness is one of his most enduring characteristics.

Rhys Davies's essential qualities as a story teller and novelist are seen in his two most recent books. The Chosen One (1967), a collection of stories, presents a variety of settings and moods. But above all these tales display a stylish economy of language that tells us a great deal about Davies's characters in a little space.

Some of these stories have a Welsh background of town and country. Others are not confined to Wales, and perhaps not one is really contingent on a Welsh setting to make its point. (p. 59)

The memorable title story in this collection depicts Audrey Vines, a middle-aged spinster who torments, deliberately, a young man into murdering her. The gathering pace of the story, the sparse, sinister details, and the reader's growing realisation that violent death is the inexorable fate of Audrey Vines make 'The Chosen One' a most effective story. Audrey Vines, moreover, is a rich flowering of Davies's continuing interest in the domineering woman; here the species is taken to its ultimate, self-destructive conclusion. Yet, once again, as with all Davies's best stories, the details are less significant than Audrey Vines's character. Therein lies her doom, Davies suggests, with disturbing insight. (p. 60)

Rhys Davies's dramatic qualities as a writer are seen particularly well developed in his most recent novel, Nobody Answered the Bell (1971). As in such characteristic stories as 'The Chosen One', there is a great compression here in the novelist's treatment of a claustrophobic lesbian relationship between two women, Kenny and Rose, living in an English seaport town. This maladjusted passion between the two women is eventually resolved by one of the women killing her mate.

In the development of this story, Davies removes all irrelevant detail. In the characterisation, likewise, all is excluded that does not have a direct bearing on the violent interplay between the two women. Davies thus gives us an entirely self-contained world. In this ambience, the struggle for sexual and social dominance, inherent in so much of Davies's writing, as we have already noted, is refined to its ultimate expression in murder.

In this way, Nobody Answered the Bell shows the essential continuity of theme and decisive quality of concentration in Rhys Davies's writing. We thus see here a convincing fusion of technique and content. Both are perfectly matched as they combine to express the writer's view of an ultimate, and destructive, human confrontation.

In 1971, Rhys Davies was awarded a principal prize of the Welsh Arts Council for his distinguished contribution to the literature of Wales over many years. How then, in conclusion, may we attempt to assess Davies's work as a whole?

In the first place, it is suggested, Rhys Davies's work gives a rich, varied and creative portrayal of Welsh life in many of its aspects during the present century. His work was a very important liberating influence in the Anglo-Welsh literary movement as it developed between the wars. As his voice is an individual one, however, his continuing concern with themes outside a Welsh setting shows his vitality as a writer. But for those who write of Wales today, Rhys Davies's work remains an inspiration.

Secondly, Rhys Davies's concern with plot, character, situations, and his obvious integrity expressed in his characteristic personal style, all provide a model for any creative writer. His novels continue to deal with a variety of challenging characters and situations, and his stories display a classic mastery of form. Above all, there is a developing concentration of theme and technique in his work. These are qualities no writer, of whatever nationality, can ignore.

Thirdly, in a wider context, although Rhys Davies writes mostly of Wales, his characters and situations are presented with a sharpness, detachment, and humanity that are recognisable anywhere. Like Maupassant or Chekhov, like the early Kipling, or as with the stories of William Faulkner, Davies creates regional settings with universal applicability. (pp. 60-2)