LITERARY GOSSIP

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21808, 13 June 1936, Page 17

LITERARY GOSSIP

CASUAL GLEANINGS Charles Morgan’s publishers report that 20,000 copies of “Sparkenbroke,” his new novel, were sold within a fortnight of publication. Although generally praised by the reviewers, the book has had a mixed reception in a few quarters. In the “Saturday Review of Literature,” Christopher Morley devoted a long article to ridicule of “Sparkenbroke” without mentioning it by name. The following week many letters were published by the periodical in support of or in condemnation of Morley’s act. This is what one correspondent wrote:—

Christopher Morley’s article seems to me the most disgraceful piece of sham criticism I have ever read. It it not a criticism, but a disturbingly bitter attack. It is written from a slant upon which truth could never walk. Its persistent misrepresentation is so deliberate and vicious that I am ashamed of my admiration for Mr Morley these many years. Injustice in criticism is the deadliest literary sin, and no theory of ’ criticism can justify Mr Morfey’s repeated “uproariously funny.” It is a blot on the "Saturday Review of Literature.” George Dangerfield sums up his opinion of John Galsworthy for the “Saturday Review of Literature.” Something was lacking in Galsworthy’s art—that not to be negotiated hairsbreadth which separates talent from genius, which distinguished the melancholy of Cowper from the madness of Blake and the tattle of Mr Creevy from-the gossip of Walpole. Galsworthy’s work was typical, which is why it is not genius; it was the fine flower of English yeomanry, it was bred out of generations of quiet living, it should delight the believers in heredity. It could express anything but passion: it had an ultimate and fatal and English reserve.

Vincent Sheehan, whose book “In Search of History” was one of the outstanding successes of last year, has now written “Sanfelice,” his first novel. It is an historical story with a scene set in Naples in 1799. Moving in and out of the pages are such figures as Lord Nelson, Lady Hamilton, and her husband. Sir William Hamilton. There will be many to regret the recent death of Finley Peter Dunne, although few will associate that name immediately with the famous Mr Dooley who reflected on peace and war, philosophised, and expressed opinions on this and that in greatly exaggerated Irish brogue. Mr Dooley’s creator died where he had worked, in America. He was born in 1867 and for many years held responsible positions in United States journalism. In the “Saturday Review of Literature,” T. A. Daly wrote as follows of the man who had been his friend:

Peter Dunne had been in retirement for many years before his death. But he had always avoided the limelight. I often twitted him on his inability, or disinclination, to talk in public. Nothing could stir him out of his rigid reticence. And it is this, in a large measure, that accounts for the comparative silence attending the passing of this social historian and everyday philosopher, whose words so delighted and instructed an earlier generation. Here was an authentic humorist, who lived through the age of the übiquitous Chautauqua, the age of the movies, the age of radio, and who never once gave way to the temptation to “recite pieces of his own composition.” What a debt of love and gratitude we owe to his memory. At the annual dinner of the American Booksellers’ Association held in New York last month the address of the evening was given by Sinclair Lewis who classified as booksellers all authors, librarians, publishing-house workers, binders, reviewers, and paper-dealers. Among other things he said:

We are merchants as other men are soap merchants, or soup merchants or steel-rail merchants. But what unites us as those other men can never be united is a superior pride in our product. I have known plenty of booksellers who could have made much more money out of this or that lively modern racket, but they went on expounding the gospel of books because they liked to handle the confounded things. They believed that books can be more amusing than any musical show, more exciting than any melodrama on the screen, and they believed and still believe that more than any codified religion do books preserve against a troubled half-mad world the treasures of learning and the aspirations of the human soul. “The Achievement of T. S. Eliot,” a critical study by F. O. Matthdessen, provoked the following comment from Dudley Fitts in the “Saturday Review of Literature.”

I suppose Mr Eliot has only himself to blame. Approaching him the liveliest critics petrify: a Holy Chill descends upon the suavest prose as the “notes” and “ibids” multiply and criticism passes into theology. This Mr Eliot, “who”—as Ezra Pound qjice acutely remarked —“is at times an excellent poet who has arrived at the supreme Eminence among English critics largely through disguising himself as a corpse:” this Mr Eliot is the only poet I ever heard of who has been able to assist at his own deification, to hear himself discussed and estimated as though he were dead and buried already, and to read (at a by no means late period of his career) a learned account of his achievement couched in the sweetest elegiac language. Macmillan’s are publishing a new book by the Irish poet and writer, A.E. (George Russell), who died last year. It is called “The Living Torch,” and in accordance with the author’s suggestion, made shortly before his death, it has been edited by Monk Gibbons. The book will consist of essays and sketches, for the most part hitherto unpublished, dealing with Russell’s friends, his ideals for Ireland, books, well-known Irish figures and other topics. It is the habit of writers to belabour publishers and to regard them as heartless parasites on the fine flower of genius. Hamish Hamilton Ltd., of 90, Great Russell street, London, are doing their best to remove the reproach. The firm is offering two Writers’ Grants of £2OO (exclusive of royalty earnings) to authors who require help in finishing some work of promise in fiction or non-fiction. Applications must reach London on or before July 15.