NEW BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20523, 16 April 1932, Page 13

NEW BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS.

—« — IIAYMARKET MEMORIES. Through the Box-Office Window. By W. H. Leverton. T. Werner Laurie, Ltd. 24Dpp. (15s not.) . Renders who like autobiography and reminiscence have a good working rule: they are generally safe in tho law and certain to bo happy in the theatre. Mr Lovorton's book is no exception to the .second part. lie has spent lit'ty years in the box-otfico of the llaymarkct Theatre, under the Bancrofts, Tree, Harrison, and Maude, J? reel Terry, and Julia Neiison, Mrs Langtry, Vedrenne and liady, and other great manager*, and with these names others crowd in—of plays, players, auu authors —to promise tiic rich plenty ol his recollections. It was at tho Haymarket that, the Bancrofts revived "Caste'' and "Diplomacy," with Maurice liarrymore 111 the part ot Count Orloft'; and it was, at the Haymarket, forty years later, that his son, John lJarrymore, scored his immense success in "Hamlet." Here Tree produced Wilde's "A Woman of No Importance," and the successful run of "An Ideal Husband," years later, was broken by Wilde's arrest and disgrace. Here, also, Tree made enough money out of "Trilby" to build his own new theatre across the way. Winifred Emery—Mrs Cyril Maude — graduated from . understudying Ellen Terry at the Lyceum to her own Haymarket triumphs in plays so diverse as Wcymau's "Under the Red Robe," Barrie'fi "Little Minister," and tlie Sheridan and Goldsmith revivals. Maeterlinck's "Blue Bird" began badly and then—a lare thing —picked up and came into favour. So, much more curiously, did '"Bunty Pulls tue Strings" : but "Mary Rose" died young, like Milne's "Tlie Ivory Door." But it is time, perhaps, to give a specimen or two from Mr Leverton's treasury of stories. Several of the best adorn his pleasant tribute to Charles Brookfield, whose gifts as an actor were lost and as a wifc obscured when ho became a State official. Joint Censor of Plays, in 1911, Mr Leverton met him once in the Pall Mall Restaurant and received a rather intent look:

"What's the matter!" I asked uneasily. "Is my lie up round my collar, or something?' ' "No, you have a little dried soap in your car."

"How filthy!" T said hastily. "Oil, no. not filthy by any means," he replied soothingly; "a little ostentatious, perliapb!"

Another of 51 r Leverton's heroes is Henry Ivemble, whom he came to know well during the run of "Captain Swift" :

After the termination of hie engagement ho would often "look me up," and generally succeeded in brightening things. One day, during tha management of Frederick Harrison and Cyril Maude, there was a long queue at the booking-office. Kemble came to the front, the wrong side of the queue, and called out loudly:— "Can vou tell me 14, Mr Henry Kemble is to be "in the caßt of the next production lierel" . 'il don't know, sir," I answered quite seriously, as though I did not know hun. "We are not thinking of a new production at present; we are very busy with this one. "Oh, vcrv well," said Kemble. But you might 'tell Messrs Harrison and Maude that people arc enquiring—that is all!' And he went out, leaving the queue gaping at liim.

Many of the author's friends are nameless, however; representatives of his faithful but variable friend, the public. There was the man who callea at the box-office one wet day and asked if an umbrella had been found in tli<? dress circle the night before. what sort of an umbrella?" said the clerk. "Oh. I'm not particular," replied he. There was the man who asked the clerk whether tho ploy running was good, which it was not, took the re*, commendation and a stall, and at tM. end of the first act came flying out, shook his fist at the clerk across the vestibule, shouted "You —!" and departed. And there was the lady who came to the window and said, you bit the pook—l mean pick the boot?" .... and then very wisely decided to sit somewhere else and gasped, "Have you any upper seacle certs?" But perhaps the pleasnntcst thing in the whole book Jotter of thanks sent to Mr Leverfcon by "the recipient of a little Christmas remembrance" :

Dear Billy,—How extremely kind of you to send me that case of whisky for Xmas. I never tasted such marvellous whisky in mv life, I never tasted such marvellous whisky and X keep it The whisky you have sent me lor Aman is marvellous, I keep ta ß lii"g 't and how kind of 3'ou to send me tins wonderloua whichkey for Xmas which I keep tasting. It's really moshkind of you to keep send ing me thish whichshy in cases which I keep tafhing for Xmas and taslnng h.s hoc d 'wi!«'t kind' of whicket, old man, exthach tou g™a!.at Zd n ud°tlmtthank you ol« extreta extrem whwhasihy ininians eashcnse fll you c/ c?™ o XXX kisses kistmis and ZMU(SX

Readers of this book may not achieve S expression of their gratitud S but they wiU feel something of its warmth-

A BANNED NOVEL. The Puritan. By Warn O'Flaherty. Jonathan Cape,

It is revealed in another column on J, Ue that Mr has come under the an o Free State censor, a fact _ that w 1 enormously increase its s »'® Bri {£ ta&JS MSUVS i'r^'tlmt'Zost "readerl will be mh minded of -'Crime and PHnishmeut a<- they proceed, but they will n compare Mr O'Flaherty with Dostoievsky or think of associating the two names in any other respect than as original genius and imitator. In eacn case we have a morbid and lntro&pecUve central character deliberately planning and carrying out a soidid murder for an i-thical i r.no caso to rid the world of. a louso, in tho other to "remove from God a earth a foul uncleanness. In other respects also the two books follow the same general plan, and in both the motive attributed to the hero at the beginning is transformed at tho end into morbid sensationalism. But there js no real comparison between the two books otherwise, except the fact that Mr O'Flaherty has attempted to achieve by cleverness what Dostoievsky wrought—there is no other way to put • i—out of blood and fire. ' Ihe Puntan" is a painful Jiook, probably useful, and almost certainly honest. It is nearly always vivid, and here and there penetrating and vigorous. But it, is no more important as literature than any other ingeniously eonstructed and effectively written purpose novel, and of these Mr O'Flaherty has alreauy written several.

| SOVIET RULE. The City of the Bed PUgae. By Gears* Popoff. Allen and Unwln. pp. 343, (10/- net.) While the Allies and their satellites were gathering at Paris to haggle and bargain over tho spoils of victory, the j rulers of tho Kremlin looked Westward r.nd smiled sardonically. Revolutionary fires were breaking out already in Au<tiia, Hungary, Bavaria, and Italy, lr only North Germany could be taDm.it into a blaze too—! In January Moscow was on the march, and soon the Red troops were spreading out near the borders of East Prussia, where an attenuated White force was precariously maintaining itself. Far in thta rear was over-run at tho first onrush. For live months the Latvian Soviet imposed Red Law and Red Order on tho frightened city, lit that timo rifle rule not only disposed of souv thousands of citizens suspected of lack of enthusiasm for the Cause, b;. achieved in addition a most tho rough impoverishment amongst those wh.» .had not yet been gathered into iV" prisons or packed off to serve in th* Red armies. Tlie author was an eyewitness of most of the .scenes he describes. He was then a young man of twenty-three whose father lir.d held a general's rank in the Tsarist army. That is the only catch about tiw> story iiy. histor\---to one of the ii-uvsse doie«» a Red is nothing but a I'ed. Bus tho timo of the Whites came too: m May they retook Riga and the Reds, men and women, had their turn of standing up against walls if* bo shot or dispatched in cellars, under beds, or wherever else they might be. Mr Popoff's account is personal, extremely vivid and convincing, and this is not so much in spito of the manr dramatic; and even hysterical touches I in the narrative but because of them. While a number of histories of th~ Baltic war against Bolshevism have been written, thev are mostly in German. Mr Popoff's appears to be the first intelligible account in English of the rescuo of Courland and Latvia by the German General von der Golts"* "Iron" Division and the mixed groups of Baits. Russian officers. Letts, English, and free-lances of all sorts who gathered roun.d him. Tho Allied Cabinets and war-cliiefs frownc?f and applauded, lielo and impeded in vacillating confusion. But Mr Winston Churchill had divined correctly that it was more important to stop Bolshevism than to destroy Germany. Xr» matter what different opinion was beM in France he never ceased to send aid. It is the feat of intelligent prevision of which he is proudest to-day. MR LASKI ON THE CRISIS. The Crisis and the Constitution. By Baieid J. Laski. Tlie Hogarth Press and tto Fabian Society. 64 pp. (1> 84 net-) This pamphlet is a mixture of Professor Laski, who lectures on politics at tho London School of Economics, and Harold J. Laski, wlio denounces the capitalists from the leader page of the "Daily Herald." Had Mr Laski chosen to write an essay on constitutional history, ho could have done it very well; had ho chosen to write a sulphurous political pamphlet after the manner of Cobbett or Roebuck, ha could have done it even better. As it is, his interest in the curious constitutional developments since the crisis is continually being side-tracked by his | fury at the thought of Mr Thomas j smiling fatly' among his Toiy colleagues. Nevertheless, Mr Laski ha* such & fortile mind and is so veil versed in English constitutional hiatal?' that his estimate of the significance of the political events of the crisis cannot Tie ignored. His two main contentions fire that Mr Mac Donald's action in forming a National Government ©a the advice of the King, and without consulting his colleagues, is a return to the usages of tho 18th century, and that the exceptional powers *»!»" by Cabinet to deal with the crisis have reversed the result of Parliament's long struggle to get control of expenditure. As far as the first contention is concerned, not enough is known about what happened in the few fays before and after Mr Mac Donald's epiit with his Labour Cabinet to enable any very definite judgments to be made. Had time not been such an important factor, Mr Mac Donald would probably have put the situation before Sis Ministers ill much greater detail «i»n bo did. Nor roust it be forgotten that those Ministers, by their ill-timed ! demand that they in their turn shoald be allowed to consult with representatives _of the Trades tFnion Congress, practically forced Mr Mac Donald to act without * their advice or consent. Even so, it is hard* to see that 3lr Mac Donald . violated any of the converrtions which are supposed to gorem the s conduct of the Prims Minister, for most authorities on constitutional procedure specially emphasise the rightof the Prime Minister to act in soot* matters without consulting My Ministers. It is generally agreed, for instance, that a Prime Minister must use his own discretion in asking for a dissolution. It is also difficult to understand why Mr Laski's sense of comstitutional propriety is outraged by the action of the King in urginsr unon Mr Mac Donald the necessity- for « National- Government. It is true ***** tho right of _ the King to influence individual Ministers was succeesfuffv challenged in the 18th century, bat this does not affect his unquestioned right to offer advice to the Prime Minister. Mr Laski's second contention may turn out to be correct, bat at the moment it seems hasty. The Increase in the powers of Cabinet during the War deluded many intelligent people into thinking that an "executive dictatorship" would become a permanent feature of the constitution., What actually happened was that after the fall of Mr Lloyd George's Government a strong reaction in favour of Parliamentary control set in, and it is not improbable that there will be a similar reaction after the present crisis has ended. A RUSSIAN NOVEL. Tho Golovlyov Funny. at E. SfeekaActa (Salty Kov). Otng* ul QwUl Ltd.- {7/0 net.) In calling "The Golovlyov Family" the last of the great Russian norris to be translated into English, Edward Garnett in his introduction shows taste and discernment. iShchedrin (he is also called Salty Kov) is a little-known novelist to-day, although ha famous enough in his time. He was a governing official under Alexander lland was a noted satirist, although I>. S. Mirsky is no doubt right in saying that the excessive topicalness or his satires makes them date very distinctly. But in the Golovlyov Family it is the artist more than the satirist who is concerned with the tanjried unravelling of this unfortunate Russian history. Arina Fetrova.. the mother, ia a notable character, dominating the book from end to end—a strong, resourceful, businesslike wonan by whose industry the family lire: but her ungrateful hvpocritica! idlers of sons make life burdensome to her. The consequences are described aa the Russians first taught the world to describe such situations, but the book makes gloomy and monotonous reading.