LITERARY.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 19, 22 January 1916, Page 14

LITERARY.

Una L. Silberrad's new book "The Myetery of Barnard Hanson" is a sort of detective tale, "an entirely new departure for ihe author. The Rev. F. R. Barry, Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, whose excellent little book "Religion and the War" has juet been published by Methuen's at a shilling, has gone to the front ac a chaplain. Those who are interested in the career of Gene. Stratton-Porter will be glad to hear that a. fifteen-<page life sketch of the authoress prefaces the half-crown edition of "Laddie," which John Murray hae juet issued. . Messrs. Werner Laurie are publishing "Jerusalem" in their uniform edition of M. Pierre Loti's works. It draws a picture of Chriefc and the Holy Land. With it are coloured illustrations by Mr. John Fnlleylove. Arthur F. Thorn has received from a friend at the front a copy of his "Richard Jeffories and Civilisation," with a bullet hole clean through from coveT to cover. The owner was 6erloue!y wounded near La Baseee. "Rita" has gone to DartmooT for the local colour for her next novel (which Putnam's are publishing in February) instead of to her favourite Bath, which was the background of "A Grey Life" and "The Ink-Slinger." In "Ursula's Marriage," James Blyth'a new novel, which is published from John Long's, some of the characters in "Amazement" will re-appear, including Montague Bunch. It is a story of fraud and of marital complications. William Morrie' metrical romance "The Life and Death of J&son" is shortly to he issued in a new form, with the original text, by Messrs. Headley Brothens. The edition- ie printed in large type, with decorations in line and colour by Maxwell Armfield. A new Life of Wilde, "The Real Oscar Wilde," by Mr. Robert Sherard, ifl announced by Messrs. Werner Laurie, who state that "the method of James Boswell has been adopted." Wilde's conversation in the opinion of many was superior to his writing. The letters of Percy Bysehe Shelley, edited by Roger Ingpen, have been issued in two neat volumes of the Bohn collection (Bell and Sons, Ltd.), with new notes and corrections. The notee on Shelley's correspondents, which run to fcrty-five pages of smaU type, are extremely interesting.

Captain Horace Wyndham, who has been serving on the staff of the Expeditionary Force in France since the beginning of the war almost, has gathered much absorbing material for a book, ■which however, he is precluded by the military regulations from publishing until the war is over. Curtis Yorke has had to change the title of her new novel which is being published shortly. She had called it "It Came.'to Pass, , *'but she found that a' book has just been published under the title "And It Came to Pass." She has decided on ''Disentangled." She is at work on another book now. The Putnams have published a volume entitled " Prussian Memories," by Poultney Bigelow, who passed some years of his boyhood in Prussia, and in later years he made various sojourns in Germany. Young Bigelow had the opportunity, during his school work, of associating as a playmate with the present Emperor William. J. J. BelPe "Wee McGregor Enlists" has just been published. The original "Wee MacGreegor" was published exactly thirteen years ago, and the email boy is now naturally of military age. As a matter of fact, he enlists on his nineteenth birthday. The new book ie not warlike. It is only towards the end that Mac goes on active service. Mr. A. C. Benson, whose new volume, "Escape and Other Essays" has just come out with Messrs. Smith, Elder, has also Written an introduction to "A City of the Dawn," by Mr. Robert Keable, published by Messrs. Niebefc. Mr. Keable's book deals with Zanzibar- and with the problems to be solved where ChrietianitvMohammedaniam, and the pure paganism of the African hinterland meet. Mr. Albert Kingroes' new novel, "The Forties of Virginia Bright" (Hodder and Stoughton, has just- appeared during the author'e absence "somewhere" in France. Early in the war Mr. Kinross obtained a Keutenant-intenpreterehip, but the- demand for interpreters euddenlv ceaeed and Mr. Kinross transferred to the Army Service Corps. After some months service an accident, in which a heavy motor-lorry was concerned, resulted m Mb being invalided home euffering from serious concussion. His recovery was a tedioue business, but he has now been back in France some time

Can a girl bred in sordid conditions surrounded by tawdry Ideas, lift herself ermination to a higher plane lof life? Tha k> the problem «fc out for solution in "Th o Story of Julia. Page," by Kathleen * OTTi3 . lt has been anßWere £ in the affirmative often enough in the course of colonial experience, and in this interesting book Mrs. Norris, without making any appeal to luck ox fortuitous aroumstuicet, describee a perfectly practical life which is attainable by any girl who seta her heart upon it.-Julia Page herself declares: 'The more I read, and the more I think, the more it seems to mc that any one can be anything in this world; theie'e some queer rule that makes you rie if you want to rise, if only you don't compromise 1 The rea son w> many people don't ultimately get what they want is because .they etop trying for rt, and take something dee"' The main incidents of the story occur in San Francisco, and the novel preeenta a picture of life in variooe phases of an ciety m that city. Without invoking any element of sensationalkm, Mrs. Norris eocceeds i» sustaining the interest of the reader in whet may, from -various pointe of view, be regarded «c a more or lev commonplace career. ! Julia, had to face difficulties of many kinds and even after a successful effort to -aiee hereelf out of eordid and tawdry conditions had resulted in what promiwd to M a happy marriage, she still had to exercise- considerable tact in managing a somewhat difficult husband. But iher unfailing patience and good cense unravelled the tangle which threatened to wreck their domestic happiness. It is a wholesome story, and withal a cheerful one, which leaves the reader with a consciouenees of hours well spent and impressions well worth treasuring. The publisher ie Mr. John Murray.

In the play "Plaster Saintszangwfll attacks modern characteristic force and originality *? scene is a provincial Engiieh towi'll central character in the action i. clergyman whose past life involve, i,- , in a series of incidents which several intensely dramatic ep?Bodte * 1 is pubbshed by the Macmillan Compaj H

t W^ lng Shot " a took U 1 Jerome D. Travem, the famous amateur golf player, * announ^ 0 object of the book "is not to .present '* definite instruction along *£$* lines, but to range out into thoV* familiar field of golf show the value of concentration and--? trol of nerves, and to illustrate a points with stories of champioi&li! matches and champion players; aaS won with certain shots or by jjJS temperamente." w,o *l

A SURGEON m KHAKI. By A. A MARTIN, M.D., Ch.B., F.RC-B Ed. Edward Arnold. 6/net. A special interest for Ifew Zetland readers attaches to this book on thTir from the pen of Dr. Martin, senior fc geon of Palmerston North Hospital. t£ author was attending the annual meet ing of the British Medical AssociaS Congress at Aberdeen when the war fc gan, and he promptly placed his eervieei at the disposal of the War Office. Thfc teen years before he had seen serria with the South African field force; tad had a medal with four clasps from that campaign, besides other qualification* of a civil and military character, but& found that this gave him no precedent* with the Army Medical Department ij London. Able medical men and eurgeow who had given up big practices wen placed on the same footing as jung doctors who a few weeks before had mi. haps been their pupils. This, he rtewi was not conducive to efficiency. In fict, the administration of the Army Medial Service generally comes in for a goql deal of scathing criticism, which appeafj' to be very well deserved, judging by the array of facts which Dr. Martin Kts out in the course of his narrative.

But questions of administration, thj treatment ol surgical t-nd medical cases which are specially o;i professional in! terest, occupy a very minor place in th« vivid account of the events that occurred in the early months of the war.. The author describes in graphic language, but without any striving after effect the impressions which were produced in the course of several strenuoiii months spent with the Field Ambulant! of the Fifth Division of the 2nd Army of the British Expeditionary Force,' and a surgical specialist at No. 6 General ijbspital, Rouen. He crossed to Havre k .» steamship crowded with the first rt. inforcements for the British Army k France, and arrived when rumours of j very disquieting character regarding the German advance on Paris were coming through. A well authenticated repoH that 20,000 German troops were advancing rapidly with the intention of ing the British base at Havre, burn 6m huge stores, sink all the British shipping and blow up the railways, caused the Br? tish force of 6,000 stationed at Hartar to set feverishly at work upon entreat menta. The arrival of 15.00& French ci* alry-caussd bed; but that the security of Havre atthtt period was still in doubt is shewn by tie fact that Lord Kitchener personally /visiter that port and ordered its evacuatjon as & British base, the troops be£b£ reembarked in six large transports "ail conveyed to St. Nazaire, a journey occupying three days. Confusion--"blun-ders, slips, miscalculations, and carelessness" reigned supreme at the eftbark*. tion and during the voyage, and tb« author indicates incompetence on the part of various officers holding respoft sible positions. . '

Immediately after arrival at -St iNazaire, Dr. Martin was ordered-ta Nantes, and then to Paris, and 1* win ■became overwhelmed with work aniojig the wounded during the battle of tie Marne and the series of engagements which followed in the course of the German retreat vto the Aiane. The., road was etrewn not merely with the inevitable wreckage and slaughter which an inseparable from war, but the author describes instances of wanton outrages perpetrated by the Germans, which.. h« states, are "typical of hundreds pf others that I have seen in France"— homes sacked, furniture deliberately smashed, and civilians murdered in. cold blood. Shortly after leaving Chiezy, Bβ party came across the dead body of * French farmer, with regard to .whose death an old woman on the farm told them she caw the farmer in conversation with a German offcer, and apparently protesting against something, when;the officer suddenly placed hia revolver against the farmer's head and shot hfcn. About a mile further on they found the : body of anotber middleaged man, lying near a plough close to the road, whoeVhead had been battered in, probably Witt the butt-end of a rifle. The third instance of ths fiendish villainy he ra» later on in the same day. A.mere youth lay with his face downwards »t the door of a cowhouse, dead from * foullet-wound in the chest. "I examined the wound with come care," says Dr>; Martin, "and would be quite prepared to swear in any court of law that ti« man who had shot him had pressed tie Tevolver against the dead man's cherf when he pulled the trigger. Th*» examples of nauseous and disgust)*? frightfulnese amazed mc. I had never before come up against such tragediesT and I felt an unholy pleasure that our, big guns further along the road tfert I pouring shrapnel and shell amonget tW. living devils who did such things." - Dr. Martin not only describes. ina\; dents that came directly under his .op. notice, but telfe many stories thati'wer? current in the camp. He was fortunate in seeing not only Generals. French and Smith-Dorrien during the battle of the Marne, but also at a later period o( the campaign, had a good chance-oJ observing General Joffre, of whom **'. aays: "Joffre did not look the dazdia| military leader of romance, but he looked very businesslike. Here was not the lean figure and the hawk nose ;of» ■Wellington, the glittering swagger.of », Murat, or the inscrutable pose of th« little Grey Man of Destiny. Yet th> broad, homely, comfortable, and deaW" cratic figure, standing by the roadside, and carefully observing us, is the most, powerful man in France to-day—the miS against whom no political criticism-& levelled, the idol of the soldiers, end to whom the people of France have such * simple faith." Altogether "A Surgeon in Khaki" h»» made a. valuable contribution to our literature. Among the many books ott this fruitful topic we know of none which fleals co effectively with the Medical Corps and its work. ' ■ i The proceeds of the sale of the Ne*. Zealand edition will bo devoted t« patriotic purposes.