Howard and A. B. B. Valentine, publishing work by L. A. G. Strong, Edmund Blunden, John Strachey, and Maurice Bowra. His own essays, short stories, and reviews were also included in its pages. In this early part of his career, Hartley spent most of his time broadening his social life. He was introduced by Huxley to Lady Ottoline Morrell, who welcomed him into her famed literary circle. Kitchin, with whom he had been reunited at Oxford, introduced him to Cynthia Asquith, who became a lifelong friend. He also met the writer and socialite Elizabeth Bibesco, whose support and status catapulted Hartley into aristocratic British circles. Although he enjoyed rapid social success, his career as a writer failed to take off, and he was unhappy. After his years at Oxford, Hartley worked as a book reviewer. He wrote articles for multiple publications, such as The Spectator, Saturday Review, and The Nation and Athenaeum. His favourite publication to write for was The Sketch. Hartley was praised extensively for his critical, steady, and wise reviews. However, the large number of books he had to read distracted him from his goal to write novels. Short stories and novels In 1924, he met Constant Huntington of G. P. Putnam, who published his first volume of short stories, Night Fears, in that year, as well as his novella Simonetta Perkins in 1925. Night Fears was relatively unsuccessful, earning him no money. Simonetta Perkins brought him only £12, though it was written about favourably. The Saturday Review called the young writer "one of the most hopeful talents", and The Calendar of Modern Letters said that Simonetta Perkins was a "distinguished first novel". Modern critics have called it his most dangerous novel, as Hartley explored infatuation and sexuality in a way not considered respectable at the time. In 1932, Hartley published The Killing Bottle, a collection of ghost stories. Cynthia Asquith included some of them in an anthology, which increased his popularity with the public. Critics thought of Hartley as the successor of the Edwardian greats M. R. James and E. F. Benson. Though he had worked on it for two decades, Hartley did not publish his first full-length novel, The Shrimp and the Anemone, until he was 49 years old. He had started and stopped writing the novel many times and even submitted it to a writing contest under a different name, but it did not win.