The Atlantic Bookshelf: A Guide to Good Books

To discover new talent is the incentive of every editor. To chance upon a manuscript which proves to be the first and unmistakable evidence of a mature writer (whose light has been under the bushel) is an experience of almost æsthetic satisfaction. Peking Picnic, the first novel by Ann Bridge, was a case in point. A like discovery is that of Winifred Van Etten, a young Iowan, who, after teaching Latin for two years and English for six, quietly wrote her first book and walked off with a $10,000 prize.