Before she published her distinguished novels, Muriel Spark first made her name as a critic and poet. Her discerning study of the poet and novelist John Masfield will therefore be doubly welcome, as an example of her earlier work, and as one of the best introductions to Masefield. With characteristic insight, Spark shows Masfield’s development as a storyteller, through his early lyrics to his long narrative poems and finally his prose, together with his gift for observation of the life around him.