LITERARY GOSSIP

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22431, 18 June 1938, Page 18

LITERARY GOSSIP

In Sir Hugh Walpole’s opinion, “The Spirit of Man,” compiled by Robert Bridges in 1915, is the mart beautiful anthology yet made. Th* meaning of the title is best explained in Bridges’s own word*, from the preface: The main implication [of the sequence in which the passages Bte intended to be read! is essential, namely that spirituality is the basis and foundation of human life—in so far as our life is a worthy subject foe 'deal philosophy and pure aesthetic—rather than, the apex or final attainment of it. It must underlie everything. To put it briefly, man is a spiritual being, and the proper work of his mind is to interpret the world according to his higher nature, and to conquer the material aspects of - the world so as to bring them into subjection to the spirit.

It is not a “dipper’s” anthology. Bridges invited the reader “to bathe rather than to fish in these waters”; and, to avoid distracting attention and leading away thought and even “over-ruling consideration,” he printed no titles or names of authors in the text. These identifications are supplied at the end of the book.

Mr de Kruif has established himself with “Microbe Hunters” and “Men Against Death,” as a writer extraordinarily well able to explain to the ordinary reader the progress of medical science, in its preventive and curative branches, against the

diseases that afflict Co? pwMl3( mankind. - _ One of the many good qualities o( his work is that it tends always to enlist his readers in the active campaign against disease rather than to leave them awaiting the results won by science. His latest book, calm “The Fight for Life,” will be reviewed next week.

The Pulitzer Prize for the best American work of fiction published in 1937 has been awarded to John P. Marquand for “The Late George Apley.” Comment oa the award has been generally favourable, A. judicious article in the “Saturday Review of Literature,” in a retrospect of the history of the Pulitzer awards, finds the chief sin to_ be that of omission, the “outstanding author to be ignored being Ellen Glasgow. Others passed over have been Hemingway and John Dos Passes.

On the positive side, where the Pulitzer committees have fallen short most consistently is in their selection « dark horses. They have taken Ma*> garet Wilson’s ‘‘The Able McLaagp lins,” Miller’s “Lamb' U His Bosom,” H. L. Davis’s “Honefte the Horn,” but missed John Steinbeck several times. And in fIWJJ awards to novelists of unquestioned distinction, they have not aIWTI chosen the novelists’ best books. WtO* Gather, for instance, got the prize with “One of Ours,” but did not *Bl it with “A Lost Lady,” “Death CORO for the Archbishop,” or "Shadows on the Rock.” This year the fiction prize has W« awarded both safely and well Thai® will be few to quarrel; most of those who wanted the prize to go to ICen-* neth Roberts’s “Northwest Passage will nevertheless recognise that tnO difference of opinion is legitimate. Whether the committee decided that enough historical novels had already been Pulitzer prize winners, and whether that counted in the docislwh is something we shall never know, ana it is not important. Mr Marquand deserves the prize as well as any other American novelist who published a novel in 1937. He sowed a field already exhaustively cultivated by so distinguished a writer as George Santayana* and he was triumphantly successful in raising his own crop. The other Pulitzer awards were: Irama: Thornton Wilder, for “Our Town.” Poetry: Marya Zaturenska, for “Cold Morning Sky.” Biography: Odell Shepard, lor “Pedlar’s Progress,” and Marquis James, for “Andrew Jackson.” History: Paul H- Buck, fer Road to Reunion.” * .

Kenneth Roberts’s “North-west Passage” is now an international best-seller. In England it went through four large printings in tour weeks. In Australia advance sale? exceeded those of ‘‘Gone with the Wind.” Within the next few months it will be published in France, Italy, Denmark. Swede*, Germany, Finland, Poland, and Non* way. The film rights have bee® acquired by Metro-Goldwyn-Maytt.

Rebecca West complains that mod" ern English travel boohs have deteriorated. When Sir Arthur Evans went to the Balkans in his twenties, more than 60 years ago, she says, he took care first to furnish himself with a knowledge of the South Slav languages and history and politics; and the books he wrote are still of great practical use to the traveller. The majority of travellers of that time made such preparations. But too often the modern writer passes across continents without the smallest equipment of relevant knowledge. He is capable of saying: * then went into a Buddhist monastery and felt sorry I knew nothing about Buddhist monasteries.”

Among recent travel books, reports the librarian of the Canterbury Public Library, are "Tropic Fever,” by Ladislao Szekely, which deals with Sumatra, and "ThreeWheeling Through Africa,” by James C. Wilson, an account of * motor-cycle and side-chair journey from Nigeria to Eritrea. In “Orientations,” Sir Ronald Storr gives an account of his administrative work in Eastern Europe. Late mails have brought mar® new novels. These include "Scoop. ; a story of journalism by Evelyn Waugh, “Pomfret Towers,” by An- J gel a__ Thirkell, and “Nightingale Wood,” by Stella Gibbons, who wrote “Cold Comfort Farm.” A new detective story is “Ap poifi tiQCflv with Death,” by Agatha Christie-