His prose style was "natural and lucid", and he was disapproving of over-intellectual or pretentious writing. In "The Georgian Literary Scene", an evocation of the era of the gentlemanly man of letters in its final years, he wrote, "If I dwell for a moment longer, as I fear I must, upon the weakness of too much scholarship in the arts, it is because I think scholarship is nowadays excessively valued as a necessary preliminary to creative writing." Of all of his critical contributions, "The Georgian Literary Scene" stands out, and it is still used by those who study the period. "The New York Times" declared it "wholly – and most refreshingly – unlike other literary histories." Swinnerton himself said of his work: "My best books, in my own opinion, are "Harvest Comedy" and "The Georgian Literary Scene", but I do not regard either one as of lasting importance... I live in the country, am very lazy, work unwillingly very hard, and have few intolerances."