British writer and literary critic, Victor Sawdon (V.S.) Pritchett, 1900 –1997, is perhaps best known for his short stories. These have been compared to the writings of Joyce and Chekhov, although Pritchett himself claimed it was Irish writers such as Sean O’Faolin, Liam O’Flaherty and Frank O’Connor who taught him what a short story could be.   In this lively and original 1968 autobiography, Pritchett recalls his working-class childhood with urbane subtlety and wry humour. He captures unforgettably the smells, sounds and voices of London in the first decades of the twentieth century, and the cast of Dickensian characters who made up his childhood world, from his austere Yorkshire grandparents, to the members of his father’s Christian Science church, and the employees and customers of the Bermondsey leather factor are where he worked as a clerk until he made his getaway to Paris at the age of 20, determined to become a writer.   Victor’s mother, an irrepressible and volatile cockney from Kentish Town, had hoped for a daughter, whom she intended to name after the dying Queen. When the baby turned out to be a boy, she had to make a hasty adjustment. Life for the Pritchetts was full of hasty adjustments. Pritchett’s father was a reckless, over-optimistic peacock of a man, always embarking on new business ventures which inevitably crashed, hence the ‘cab at the door’, waiting to bear the family quietly away from yet another set of creditors.   It wasn’t an easy childhood, but Pritchett never berates his parents. Indeed, the atmosphere of this book is one of affectionate delight in storytelling, in capturing his past through anecdotes.   Sources: Guardian (review), Paris Review (interview) foxedquarterly.com (most of the summary), amazon,  and wikipedia This is a used library book in fair condition. All pages are present. Binding intact. Includes dust jacket.