THE BOOKSHELF.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 305, 26 December 1931, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE BOOKSHELF.

NEWS AND REVIEWS.

NEW STUDY OF STEVENSON.

A SATIRE ON PUBLISHERS,

On page one Cyrano, apropos a collection issued in England, discusses misprints.

A property-owning democracy seems to me the ideal for which we must work. —Mr. John Buchan. The political life, the life of the good citizen, is essentially an affair of cooperation, and co-operation is unquestionably the finest and most difficult of all human arts. —Dr. L. P. Jacks. A number of "animal stories," previously published in various magazines, now appear in volume form and illustrated. Mr. A. Sprunt names this book "Dwellers of the Silences" (Chapman and Hall); mink, bear, porcupine, crocodile, eagle, hawk, raven, swan and wildcat are herein made familiar to the reader by stories written around and about them, and their personal points of view not omitted. Nature red in tooth and claw; the creatures which seek their meat from God; the instinct which rivals reason; much is written of these, but there is no man anywhere amongst us who understands the apparent waste of life and the seeming cruelty which adjusts its balance. CHARACTER OF " RX.S." PICTURESQUE BUT SERIOUS. AN ENGLISHMAN'S STUDY. Probably no new fact about Robert Louis Stevenson's life is set down in Sidney Dark's study of him, nor is any needed, for the stores of Stevensoniana have long been bulging with matter, much of it trivial "hero-worship" stuff. Mr. Dark, distrusting the eulogies of Stevenson's literary friends, who were all, except Henley, dazzled by his personality, has relied on his books and his letters in making a critical appreciation of his character. The two important facts about R.L.S., Mr. Dark, says, in "Robert Louis Stevenson" (Hodder and Stoughton), were that he was a Scotsman, and a sick man. "He remained a Scotsman in his marrow and in his bones," and as a Scot he was fundamentally religious, "after the Covenanter manner." The fact of his lifelong illness is, of course, well known; he lived with the imminence always of a sudden death. But in some things Stevenson was fortunate. He was never short of money, although he occasionally pretended to be. In critical years of youth he was befriended by Sir Sidney Colvin and his wife, who encouraged and guided him in his writing. His first great success came with "Treasure Island," which was not written "seriously," but to amuse his stepson. The idea of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" came to him in a nightmare. By contrast, "Prince Otto," which was "infinitely more difficult to write," caused no stir. Perhaps most fortunate .of all for him was his ideal marriage. His wife, who Was ten years older than he, undoubtedly saved his life for at least ten years, which were fruitful years. She not only knew what was best for his health, but she was a sound judge of his literary work.

But the greatest factor in his life was his spirit, which was at once gay and resolute. A man who awakes in the morning with the knowledge that it is almost probable he will be dead by the evening may react in different ways. He may hasten his death by fear of it; or, resigned to it, he may wait inactive; or he may determine that when it comes it shall find him cheerfully at work, and if possible in high spirits. It Was not in Stevenson's heredity to be other than resolute, but his gaiety is more difficult of explanation. Although he had few physical adventures in his lifetime, his mind roved gloriously free. He loved movement, colour, romance and makebelieve. It was not by chance that he, a sick man, went voyaging in the South Seas (more romantic then than now) instead of guarding his health in gome Europen spa. Yet Mr. Dark emphasises again the residual element in his character, the dignified conception of man and the universe, the earnest belief that he had a part to play in the serious business of life—in short, the idea of purpose in life, which was an idea common 4o all the great, despised Victorians. Perhaps it is because of this residual element that the interest which Stevenson the man excited in his .lifetime— which, after all, was slight compared with the interest taken in even a secondrate movie star to-day—persists long after his death, Mr. Dark's book does a service in removing the emphasis from the flamboyant side of Stevenson's character to the side that was noble and permanent." •

"A WHIP FOB THE WOMAN."

A SATIRE ON THE BOOK MARKET.

"A brilliant practical joke" is the description given by Chatto and Windiia to Mr. Ralph Straus' " A Whip For The Woman," published by them. It is a guide to literary aspirants, a gibe at publishers, critics, and literary agents, and full of gay, satirical comment°upon books, writers, and advertisers in the trade. The latter half of the book contradicts the first and reads like a dream, but the lively, humorous comment runs throughout the whole. Mr. Straus, who is biographer, novelist, and critic, here writes a history of a novel and uses it to have a fling at all the participants in the industry. The publisher insists on giving a writer's first novel the title " A Whip For A Woman," and the book falls flat until there comes into the courts a case in which the husband is alleged to have used a whip on his wife. A jocular after-dinner speaker refers to the book as evidence that fiction is not behind the times, and a boom begins. A play is written which does not resemble the book, and a film is made that does not resemble the play. Editors hasten to offer the author fifty guineas for a signed article. Real pedple are introduced. Mr. Straus relates an experience on a cricket tour with Mr. J. C. Squire, " whose poetry is better than his cricket," during which Mr. Squire completed this memorable brief review: "This is a simple story told with a quiet sincerity which bores us stiff." It is all good fun, but though Mr. Straus waniß us not to take him too literally, probably he has some serious purpose in exposing the vagaries of .the fiction market.