I AM INTERESTED to See that, so far, only one
of the perfervid supporters of Mr. Colin Wilson's first book has stepped forward to review his second. Mr. Connolly, who last year enthused.over `Mr. Wilson's dry, quick, intelligence' and his power of 'logical analysis'; Mr. Angus Wilson, Dame Edith, Mr. Pritchett, the anonymous re- viewer in the Listener who pronounced The Out- skier 'the most remarkable book [he] had ever had to pass judgment upon'; the New Statesman re- viewer who found it 'really important,' have all kept silent. The exception is Mr. Philip Toynbee in the Observer who has published a detailed re- cantation. I do not blame the others for their discretion (or perhaps it is the discretion of their literary editors), but Mr. Wilson may perhaps feel his treatment by the Sunday Times rather harsh. (Ilk age,' thundered Mr. Raymond Mortimer, 'is no excuse for his muddleheadedness.') It is only just over a year, after all, since the Sunday Times jumped smartly on to the band-wagon with an announcement of a series of reviews from Mr. Wilson and a much-heralded article for the Shaw Centenary. Mr. Wilson is said to be taking his literary execution philosophically, but his astute publisher, Mr. Gollancz, must be congratulating himself on having obtained the pre-publication opinion of Sir Herbert Read that Mr. Wilson's second book is 'better than The Outsider.'
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