LITERARY.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 249, 20 October 1928, Page 2 (Supplement)

LITERARY.

4 it kXt' - -' It is oiu» of the curiosities of our time that "Peter Pan* has never been' printed, says the "Manchester Guardian." It will soon he added hy Messrs. Hodder and Stoughton to the uniform edition of Sir Jjuhtt Berne'splays. It will be introduced: byv a long preface newly written by the author entitled "Dedication: To the Fire." There are said to be "whimsical stage-directions.".

The Bodleian Library at Oxford it exhibiting the manuscriptof John Galsworthy*# "Strife,"' ithich has been'presented by the anthor in response to a request made by the librarytoa number of writers lor a specimen of their .week in typescript or writing. In the flyleaf of "Strife" the author has written: "The manuscript was' sold for the benefit of the Bed Gross in the wartime of April,' 1918, bat I bought it myself because, after aH,it is the first draft of (perhaps) my best play. 9

We all know that Mr. Edgar Wallace is a vastly popular author, but ft is staggering to read his recent statement that in the year ended March 31 $000,000 volumes, of his boolcs were sold. "Then used to he a legend that women did not read the crimestory, but I have since discovered that I have kept more women awake, tkam any : man in England," he said. "The Ringer" had been translated into almost every language in the world except Japanese.

•t Among recent additions to the admirable world's classics series issued by the Oxford University Press, is a series of volumes of English verse. It is to be in five volumes, and is intended as a companion to the five volumes of prose published some years ago. The first volume, which begins with the Cuckoo Song of 1260 and ends with Shakespeare and his contemporaries, has been sent to us by the publishers. The editor, Mr. W. Peacock, says the purpose of tin volume is to provide a "corpus" of all great English poetry, and that he has chosen the beet and only the best, .undeterred by the presence of many of the pieces in other anthologies. There is an amatfng wealth in this little pocket volume of 450 pages, and the remainder of the series will be awaited with interest. These volumes will go on many a journey with lovers of poetry.

THE nonox tXELP.

I READABLE NOVEL OF FLIGHT.

"Down audi Oat" though he wu, we may reasonably doubt whether the young English aviator, Leaden, in Mr. Kent Shute's story "So Disdained," would have obeyed the bcdera of his Russian employes to do whet wee dearly a pieee of espionage work in England. Hb , stranding on the Sussex Downs, however, gives a start to a story of a peculiar sffewiTWraess. He is accidMrtaßy —ecoimdbythohero.roter Moran, who also hed beea a flying man during the war, and ICoran speedily finds himself in a pretty dilemma. Shall he betray tUs vafortaaate casta way,or assist te the betrayal of his country? How Moran, who is the steward of a country setete, and the heroine, Sheila, handlethe situation is well told. Sheila ! h ekralag and lons is ae likeable an Englishman aa .we. have met in books of this risse. The account given of the .strait* ia wht men Hke Leaden found themselves after the war is impressive in its simpie direetasss. If you do not believe obeyed the Bolshevik order to,take photcgiaphs over Portsmouth, yon will understand why he was driven to take service: in Russia. - The slight sketch of his wife, inherte* shop at Winchester —we have been in a tea shop in Winchester exactly like itris one ;<a the best tilings in the book. It is an Inciting story, which ends amid violence' Italian' hills, and incudes many technicalities about flying; But* the predominant. impression id. of the ,quiet English countryside and the strength and charm of English character. "So Disdained" is a Cassell publication and our copy is from Champtaloup and Edmiston. • A very domestic story—chiefly of Scot-land*-is "Eliza for Common" (Hodder and Stoughton). The authoress of "Pink Sugar,* O. Douglas, has had a struggle to get anything lively and readable out of her "meenister," and the . poverty and ignorance of dlasgow slums produce no heart-stirring episodes as they should. Parson, doctor, and the poor, in combination with domestic details; All the volume, which has a cheerful, happy ending in the air of. Paris and .London. -Many good stories for boys and girls have come out of the Cornstalk Press, and the latest to reach u> is The-Bee-Hive," by Elizabeth Powelt This is a story for girls and for mothers, mothers, that .is, who renew their youth in their children, and make a happy task of guiding, helping, and creating simple pleasures for their children. Thin book will rank'with "The Thoughtless Seven," "Seven little Australians* "and" that' delightful but much earlier English book, "The, Flat|ron for a Far thin?" Some mothers 'never grow up," and "The Beehive" will help to keep others young. There is probably no type of story of sudh general interest as that of a family, $$e joys and sorrows, the : rise and fall of its members—'many or whether the family is akin to our own or of a land unknown to us, is immaterial if its emotions and reactions are human. "Franldncense," by Guy ! Fletcher (Cassell; through Champtalop and Edmiston), is such a story. : It covers three generations of an English middle-Class family and a period of sixty years, up; to aixd including ! the Great War. Of Spain and Africa the author writes as freely and naturally as of England and Wales, and there is a sense of truth and reality throughout. The agreeable, cruel, Evans-Winsloe, who loves women and hates his wife, dominates the story, and his actions control or modify .an everwidenlng group of relatives. | To Jew and Gentile—more especially, to the former—Mr. Gustave Lazlo's b00k,,, "Spices, Bells, -and Dreams" (Cassell, through Champtaloup and Edmiston), will come as a revelation. The author has had a vision of the Jews selecting a Idng, who gathers them from all the wond once more into a nation. With a religion-both spiritual and' material, with a large proportion of the world's wealth, 'and a world-wide"' distribution, with agents everywhere, and representation in the Press, in parliaments, and in a thousand #S£t would be the limit of their The b&k haa wsauty and power, and that indefinable Quality which makes the difference between the report: - oT,"a< arood' journalist receding policeman. * Forth/ °*

The view of the War that It a " arose out of gigantic muddle and :a >folhMring. of-isbe gods* and that no to btyuhe modi more oilier, finds long expression in fThe'lhs-Wsp Mind in Britain; An Historical Beview," by Ouuliiie B. Playne, whoee rimilar book. Tha Neuroses of the Nations" was reviewed some time sgo in these columns. It'ls a painstaking study, in which; a. grteat mass of material !* presented. Such a book has some value, hut-' its inteDeetnal moral processes. 'are far too indeterminate. The mass of evidence is presented without discrimination, the same weight I being given to seeond and third-rate witnesses and commentators aa tofirot-rate. Thethesia Is that Britain blundered into i position which made participation in | the war inevitable, The difficulties of statesmen are not sufficiently. appreciated, and Miss Plsyne and her frienda do not courageously face the eonsequenees of aloofness. Lord Asquith ant; Lord Grey : have, described faithfully What those consequences wouhT: :> have, been, and noadeqaate answer, to. them hasever been presented. Allen and Unwin are the 'publishers. ■ J ; 1

A* . E&B1T KIUZOIABT>S • JOUBMAI*.

Tip publication of a book dealing with the esrly.history of New.-'Zealand is always an erent, especially when it is an original diary. Though much has ..been done to write the story of- the beginnings of civilisation in the Dominion, any fresh addition to our knowledge of those days is welcome. "Earliest New Zealand," being extracta front the jourhale of Bev. John Butler, compiled by B. J. Barton (Pafaunontain and Petherick, Masterton), is in many ways interestmg and valuable. It is -unfortunate, however, that the book has some grave defects. Its arrangement is often fsulty, the extracts from the Hhriwi bring Interspersed with letters which seem to bo out or their properplaee. Mr. Barton, though nodoubt his baa been a labour of loire> apparently haa had no experience .of aneh work. Worse than this, however, is that hi seems to have a bias' ngsihst Marsden. Instead of Isavh«ff .the diary and letters to tell their own story he interpolates here and comments (in italics) 1 of his own. This has the effect of very largely destroying the historical valne of the book, for- it creates in the reader's Midi a feeling that it is all prejodked, and that much in the diaries and letters may have been suppressed to suit the campOerY point of view, or thai it may be refuted by otherevidenee. The future historian will no doubt urn this book, but he will also delve very earefußy into other data toseeif theysubstantlate the things which 'the- .bosk purporta to prove. Ssmud Marsden, whether ho 1 deserved it or not,, has a great name among the makers of New Zealand, and in Australia later ressarrh has proved that he waa fifir greater and more far-seeing than mostof his opponents, and that many «f the charges brought against him were groundless. As to fhs aind between Marsden and Butler, oven the evidsaes in -the book showa tlwt there any have been two ridee to the question. Butler seems to have been a hardworking aad eonsdentious man, who tried to cany out his dutiee to the best of hiis. ability. ReadingbetsrecntheHnee, however,'even from his own stateawnts, it would eraser. that his;was not-s itraig men, ,dj[h|i colleegues. Also,hewMpoofsssedof a# irritable, if #Uck doubtless him mdntentiaßaHy to distort aad prevented him from taking an impartial vinr of the subject in dispute. He was from time to time at Variance with ovary other member of the mission staff. Sueh a aian wu obviously unfitted for the position of superintendent of a mission working among a number of savages who were quick to see the fault of its head.. Having said,this much one must acknowledge the good work Butler dkL To-him belongs the honour of,being the, first' to introduce, anting, like systematic agriculture into New Zealand, He cectainly worked hard abd attended regularly to the;duties of a dergynmn. The book is full of interesting details at the life of the early -missionaries aad the hardships they had to undergo. To Butler and Kemp fell the work of found ing the second Mission Station, Kerikeri, and building the house (now the oldest in New Zealand, dating from 1819) which is stilt occupied by Mr. Kemp's descendants. , C ' ' ','C- V ''

ageing heroes.

Peter Pan bag grown up. The "gay, innocent and heartless" boy who ran away to live with the fairies the day he was born, to escape becoming an adult, is an adnlt after all. He is Peter Davies, a young English publisher/ whose business ventures are said'to be sponsored, i appropriately enough, by Sir James M. Barrie. Perhaps; it ja just as well that the original- of this character has grown • older in the usual way. The graceful Peter Pan statue in Kensington Gardens, London, was recently set upon by vandals, who tarred fod feathered it. Other times, other manners. It is I always interesting, and sometimes rather moving, to hear of the later lives of our childhood heroes and heroines. Two nations recently hailed - the original , Alice" and bid fabulous sums for her | copy of "Alice in Wonderland." ,Mr. Ford, When he purchased the red school ; house to whidi the lamb followed Mary, was himself followed by the fondly reminiscent eyes of the nation. Not a few' poignant memories were awakened among men in their early forties who raid, several weeks ago, of the death of the actor who originated the role of Little Lord Fauntleroy, Mrs. Burnett's too-gbod-to-be-true hero who caused boys of his generation such agonies of "liaee collars -and black velvet. Who would not like' to hear tidings, preferably bad, of the aditit years of the priggish Hover Boys or of the young paragons of Henty? Who would not rejoice to know that the originals of Peck's Bad Boy, Tom Sawyer and Hucklebury Finn owned a private yacht apiece T If all these story-book celebrities have grown old in real life, Peter Ban had best grow grqy with the rest, says an .American writer. He cannot, ■ with decency, remain young any more than can the children of the last generation who read of him and watched him dn the stage. Doubtless modern children must have more up-to-date -playfellows. It is to be Hoped that Mr. Davies will publish books that will give .to the-difldrieai of the, new generation -a' hero 'Whowill mean to them what Peter Bui hu' meant to their parents.

BOOKS KECEireDI. .r ■- •

"JuwrMuV tar Alice Campbell; '*®jxa foe Comm,' Uy O. Douglas (Hodder andStonjrtiton). "CrwtiT* ■fPwt," by Itoiiitt ÜBds« (Robertson inff Muffins). - "Ofltoial Hi*Mfy4T