Set Down in Malice: A Book of Reminiscences Part 1

The first half begins with the author’s encounters with figures such as George Bernard Shaw revealing a mixture of admiration curiosity and subtle vanity expressed through gentle humor, and as he observes various writers and intellectuals he exposes the gap between personal identity and public image while reflecting on his own development through correspondence and experience, and these portraits collectively depict the atmosphere of early twentieth century intellectual society, gradually showing how the author situates himself within that world.