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Fireman Flower
1944
Hogarth Press
William Sansom, born 1912, is one of the younger British authors much sought after by the leading literary periodicals. This volume of short stories is a good example of his art, and his style which is peculiarly his own, In this collection he uses the allegorical form to express the subconscious reasons for human action and reaction, which he sets forth with clear-sighted observation and find distinction. His stories have also something of the enchanting quality of the fairy-tale, sometimes macabre, wholly fascinating and clothed in a rich and exquisite prose.
Interspersed among these stories are others dealing with actual events, such as The Wall, which describes fire-fighting during the war in all its matter-of-fact horror. Mr Sansom writes with his sense and imagination and with his intelligence always at full stretch.
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Criticism
An exceptional writer - a positive and excellent style of his own.
New Statesman
By far the most able of the younger short-story writers.
Time and Tide
William Sansom's volume of stories, Fireman Flower, which took a lot of its material from Sansom's own experience in the National Fire Service in wartime London, conjured Kafka images out of burning buildings.
Anthony Burgess
A writer of unusual gifts and considerable promise.
Scotsman
He has remarkable freshness of eye and mind, an immense vocabulary, and unexpected touches that startle and delight.
Sketch
A coherent and somewhat terrifying world. It is because everythign is just right, that these stories produce such a profound impressions.
The Listener
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