“I recall that once when Swinnerton was in my house I had there also a young military officer with a mad passion for letters and a terrific ambition to be an author. The officer gave me a manuscript to read. I handed it over to Swinnerton to read, and then called upon Swinnerton to criticise it in the presence of both of us. ‘Your friend is very kind,’ said the officer to me afterward, ‘but it was a frightful ordeal.’
“The book on George Gissing I have already mentioned. But it was Swinnerton’s work on R. L. Stevenson that made the trouble in London. It is a destructive work. It is bland and impartial, and not bereft of laudatory passages, but since its appearance Stevenson’s reputation has never been the same.”
Books
by Frank Swinnerton
THE LOVER’S BATTLE
THE MERRY HEART
THE YOUNG IDEA
THE CASEMENT
THE HAPPY FAMILY