LITERARY.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIX, Issue 57, 23 February 1918, Page 14

LITERARY.

Lieut. Joseph Lee, of the King's Royal Rifles, the author and illustrator of an admirable book of battle-verse, "Workaday Warriors," recently published by Mr. Murray, is a prisoner of war in Germany.

M. Marc Henry's impressions of German life before the war, which Messrs. Constable have in preparation under the title "Beyond the Rhine," extend over a period of more than twenty years.

"More Nursery Rhymes of London Town," by Eleanor Farjeon, illustrated by Macdonald Gill, have been published in an artistic little volume by Duckworth and Co. Several of these verses have appeared in London "Punch," and all of them are racy and characterised by a quaint humour.

In " Wynningf ord," by Dr. J- Morgan-de-Groot (Stanley Paul), a Society girl, the apt pupil of a mercenary mother, inveigles the heir to a peerage into a loveless marriage. Having gratified her ambition, she cannot remain true to her vows, but carries on a dangerous flirtation with a married man. She is found dead in bed, after a violent quarrel with her husband, who is arrested and charged with murder. Although acquitted, Wynningford is ostracised by society, and adopts a singular means of protecting himself. The chief scenes are enacted on a houseboat and in an English wood.

The Fantomas mysteries have attained considerable popularity among works of fiction devoted to crime and its detection. The authors, A. Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Allain, have added another I volume to these chronicles. " A Nest of Spies" relates the nefarious i transactions of Fantomas in association with German agents employed in corrupting French soldiers and others, in order to betray military secrets. Juve, the alert detective, is hot on the track of the arch-criminal, and almost runs him to earth, but he again effects his escape, no doubt with a view to his reappearance in some equally diabolical role. The novel is published in Stanley Paul's Empire Library.

In the "Cornhill Magazine" for January Mr. Bennet Copplestone describes" the Jutland battle as ''the greatest sea fight the world has known." He says: "Had tht battle begun three hours earlier, and had visibility been as full as it had been in the Falkland Islands action, had there been, above all, ample sea foom, there would not have been a German battleship afloat when the sun went down." MajorGeneral Sir George Aston, X.C.8., reviewing the lack of expert responsibility for the Dardanelles and Mesopotamia, states:

"Up to February, 1915, admirals and generals had little or no responsibility for the strategic control of our forces ('power to act, and liability to be called to account'). This control was exercised by a War Council which they only attended as advisers." In this issue of "Cornhill" Sir H. Rider Haggard begins his new serial, "Moon of Israel: a Tale of the Exodus," thescene of which is laid in ancient Egypt.

Among other interesting articles in "Chambers' Journal" for January is one by Clive Holland on "Book Borrowers and Their Ways." The borrowers dealt with are chiefly those who take books'' from public libraries, and these are certainly curious enough. One of the most common troubles librarians experience is the tendency of certain borrowers to demand the exclusion of popular books merely because they disapprove of them. Another surprising thing is the carelessness often shewn in leaving articles of value or private letters as book-marks. One South African magnate left a dividend cheque for £500, and when communicated with did not know he had lost it. A young married lady left a diamond hairpin worth £25. A well-known Cabinet Minister left the notes of an important political negotiation of a secret character. Librarians therefore have to be both discreet and honest.

"Hawk of the Desert," by Miss G. E. Mitton (John Murray) introduces the German spy before the war sowing disaffection against British rule among the wild inhabitants of Upper Egypt. Against his machinations are pitted the astute mind and dauntless courage of a Pathan belonging to the English Intelligence Department, who acts as the agent of a gallant British officer, Bimbashi Durham, whose antagonism to alien intruders in the Egyptian Sudan has aroused the German's bitter animosity. By a cunning device the German agent gets Durham and a small party of English visitors into his power in the vast Atbar desert of the Egyptian Sudan. Here are enacted some thrilling episodes, in which the Pathan exhibits extraordinary resource in rescuing the party and carrying them over the wastes of sand and gravel and rock. The very breath of the desert is in the book, for the author evidently knows the land she writes about; but the scenery comes second to the story, which is one of absorbing interest.

"Songs of Love and Life," by Zora Cross," is the title of an enlarged edition of poems which has just been published by Messrs. Angus and Robertson, of Sydney. Miss Cross, the publishers 6tate," is "quite young," and a native of Queensland; a portrait, published as frontispiece, conveys the impression of youth, purity, and frankness; yet she has produced a volume of poetry, so marked, so individual, so powerful in its way, that the first edition was sold out in three days. It cannot be gainsaid that the poetic quality of the sixty love sonnets, which are the leading feature of the book, is high, and their artistic technique well-nigh perfect; but they sing the praises of merely physical love. They may be "the saviour of life unto life," to those who are spiritually minded, but they are capable of being twisted and wrested from their original intent and made to pander to base tastes. The lover of "art for art's sake" will wonder and admire; the reader who likes purpose allied to art will doubt and question. But there is no room whatever to doubt the sincerity of Miss Cross, and her book, despite its high quality, assumes greater importance as a sociological symptom than as a work of art. For it marks a certain triumph of feminism and an undoubted shifting of sentimental, values as between the sexes. It shows how the adoration and worship that men have for centuries bestowed upon women may be in process of reversal—woman I becoming the aggressive, dominating, yet adoring sex, and expressing with perfect. freedom her love for the male. The i other contents of the book show a pleasing fancy and ready powers of expression, j The best poems, however, are those deal- j ing with sex problems, such as "Thou | Shalt Not," "Outside the Gate," and ' "The Triumph of Eve." The two longest I efforts, "The Vision of Jehovah" and "The Ragnarok of Regeneration," are •largely composed of bombastic sound i and fury, while "Gods at Gallipoli" is I little better. ,