Here is Sally Benson, the favorite satirist of the sophisticated, at her shrewd, merry and malicious best. The thousands of ultra-particular readers who were delighted by her previous collection of short stories, People Are Fascinating, will find that she has dipped her pen more deeply than ever in the quiet irony and shrewd venom which is the essence of her art.
Mrs. Benson writes once more about women. She takes a cruel pleasure in exposing the weaknesses of her sex, but underneath her swift narratives there runs a gentle pity which makes her an ideal portraitist of femininity. Whenever she directs her eager curiosity, she finds the pretense, the arrogance, and the mad affectation which she loves to demolish.
If she is intolerant of shams, she is good-humored in their exposure; if her barbed irony is torture to her victims, it is a delight to her readers. Emily contains several stories that have never been printed. Its sparkle and gaiety, its intimate revelations of women, and its technical brilliance mark it as the work of a writer to be reckoned with.
