"Don't Blame the Author — He Reflects Today."

Bates responds to an article in a previous edition of the Daily Mail that criticized the modern novel for "sheer dreariness through lack of action."

He cites sales figures as evidence of a much healthier market than before the War and disputes the notion that dreariness or lack of action applies more to the present than the past. He predicts that the novel of the future will be shorter in length and, influenced by television and film, will be "more graphic, more pictorial, and more diverting in fewer words."

In the Daily Mail (August 9, 1954, p. 4, attached).