To the Editors:

Chance has led me to read a novel by an American writer published by Charles Scribner in 1884. It is called The Crime of Henry Vane and the pseudonymous author is given as J.S. of Dale author of Guerndale. It’s a remarkable novel and not as I had imagined a criminal one. Published in the same year as Howells’ The Rise of Silas Lapham it can well bear comparison with any of that author’s books. As the study of a young American girl of the period it can even bear the comparison with Daisy Miller. The Crime of Henry Vane is probably well known in the United States and it is only an Englishman who is ignorant of the author’s name and of his work. I would be very grateful for any enlightenment.

Graham Greene

La RĂ©sidence des Fleurs

Avenue Pasteur

06600 Antibes

France

This Issue

September 27, 1979