I am exceedingly sorry to have to write to you that while several of us here have read your new novel with interest, we are doubtful as to whether we can publish it with any reasonable hope of a satisfactory success under present conditions. To write to you quite frankly the unanimous feeling is that the book as worked out has rather the color of a thesis novel and does not, therefore, quite succeed in making the reader lose himself in a complete illusion. We are exceedingly sorry to have been forced to this conclusion but since we have been, we see nothing for it, therefore, but to tell you so frankly. We are returning the manuscript under separate cover by express prepaid with our thanks for the opportunity of seeing it.