Copyright, 1923, by Frederick A. Stokes Company

All Rights Reserved

Printed in the United States of America

CONTENTS

PAGE
[Thomas Hardy] [3]
[Hilaire Belloc] [13]
[Arnold Bennett] [23]
[John Davys Beresford] [33]
[John Buchan] [43]
[Donn Byrne] [53]
[William Henry Davies] [63]
[Walter de la Mare] [73]
[Sir Arthur Conan Doyle] [83]
[John Drinkwater] [93]
[Jeffery Farnol] [103]
[John Galsworthy] [113]
[Sir Anthony Hope Hawkins] [123]
[Arthur Stuart Menteth Hutchinson] [133]
[Sheila Kaye-Smith] [143]
[Rudyard Kipling] [153]
[William John Locke] [163]
[Stephen McKenna] [173]
[Compton Mackenzie] [183]
[John Masefield] [193]
[Alfred Edward Woodley Mason] [203]
[William Somerset Maugham] [213]
[William Babington Maxwell] [223]
[Leonard Merrick] [233]
[Alan Alexander Milne] [243]
[Alfred Noyes] [253]
[E. Phillips Oppenheim] [263]
[May Sinclair] [273]
[Frank Swinnerton] [283]
[Hugh Walpole] [293]
[Herbert George Wells] [303]
[Israel Zangwill] [313]
[Index] [323]

ILLUSTRATIONS

FACING PAGE
[Thomas Hardy] [Frontispiece]
[Hilaire Belloc] [12]
[Arnold Bennett] [22]
[John Davys Beresford] [32]
[John Buchan] [42]
[Donn Byrne] [52]
[William Henry Davies] [62]
[Walter de la Mare] [72]
[Sir Arthur Conan Doyle] [82]
[John Drinkwater] [92]
[Jeffery Farnol] [102]
[John Galsworthy] [112]
[Sir Anthony Hope Hawkins] [122]
[Arthur Stuart Menteth Hutchinson] [132]
[Sheila Kaye-Smith] [142]
[Rudyard Kipling] [152]
[William John Locke] [162]
[Stephen McKenna] [172]
[Compton Mackenzie] [182]
[John Masefield] [192]
[Alfred Edward Woodley Mason] [202]
[William Somerset Maugham] [212]
[William Babington Maxwell] [222]
[Leonard Merrick] [232]
[Alan Alexander Milne] [242]
[Alfred Noyes] [252]
[E. Phillips Oppenheim] [262]
[May Sinclair] [272]
[Frank Swinnerton] [282]
[Hugh Walpole] [292]
[Herbert George Wells] [302]
[Israel Zangwill] [312]

THOMAS HARDY

Those who dissent from Byron’s dictum that Keats was “snuffed out by an article” usually add that no author was ever killed by criticism; yet there seems little doubt that the critics killed Thomas Hardy the novelist, and our only consolation is that from the ashes of the novelist, phœnix-like rose Thomas Hardy the Poet.