16 JULY 1942, Page 13

Sin,—There are two omissions in Mr. Swinnerton's Decay of the

Novel. He mentions neither Elizabeth Bowen nor I. Compton Burnett, two writers who have been and are still producing work superior—at its best —to any of the novels of Galsworthy, Wells or Bennett, and equal to —though not perhaps comparable with—that of E. M. Forster, Rose Macaulay, Virginia Woolf or D. H. Lawrence. Also Mr. Swinnerton's new definition of the Highbrow is a little worrying. What exactly is this " culture " that they seem to be absorbing to the exclusion of everything else? And why it is " unfor,unate " that they should be in this case? If this is a new intellectual racket Mr. Swinnerton ought to play fair and let us Mezzo-Brows in on it at once.—Yours, &c.,