Mr. Beresford is most warmly to be congratulated upon his new book, _The House in Demetrius Road_ (Heinemann). Mr. Beresford's work has had from the first remarkable qualities that place him beyond question amongst the first half-dozen of the younger English novelists; but never before, I think, have his talents had a subject so exactly suited to their best display. It would be difficult to praise too highly the grim and relentless effect of the author's treatment of his subject. _Robin Gregg_ is a drunkard, and everyone about him--his secretary, his sister-in-law, his little girl--is caught into the dingy cloud of his vice. The house also is caught; and very fine indeed is the way in which Mr. Beresford has presented his atmosphere--the rooms, the dirty strip of garden, the shabby suburb, the London rain--but beyond all these things is the central figure of _Gregg_ himself. Here is a character entirely new to English fiction--a man who in spite of his degradation has his brilliance, his humour and, above all, his mystery. It is in this implication that, at the very heart of the man, there are fine things too degraded and degraded things too fine for any human record of them to be possible that the exceptional merit of Mr. Beresford's work lies. In his desire to avoid any possible cheapness or weak indulgence he misses, perhaps, some effects of colour and pathos that might, a little, have heightened the contrasts of his study; and I do not feel that the woman is as vivid as she should be. These things, however, affect very slightly a story that its author may indeed be proud to have written.