This is an odd little book, in its way. Murray's purpose is to show how, beginning in the late 19th century, English novelists abandoned a Christian moral stance, due to their own backgrounds and beliefs, and contributed to the moral degradation of succeeding generations. He does an excellent job in describing the personal backgrounds and personal moralities of writers such as Robert Louis Stevenson, Thomas Hardy, George Bernard Shaw, and H. G. Wells, showing how their lives, and their reaction to Christianity, influenced the books they wrote.

However, Murray fails to demonstrate any of this, from the authors' writings themselves. Murray gives no examples, from any of these writers' works, as to how their attitudes filtered down to the popular level and influenced the culture. Considering that his book's subtitle is How Fiction Changed Britian, it would have been most helpful if he had used these authors' writings to give particular examples. I realize that Murray didn't have much room for such demonstration (the book has only 95 pages of actual text), but still, at least a few examples would have been helpful. Perhaps his final chapter, a 17-page discussion of how the Bible is not fiction, could have been shortened to make room for some of these examples.

This book is still useful, though, and is worth reading. I'm just disappointed that Murray did not drive home his main idea by using actual selections from these authors' works.