HAPPY PUBLISHER

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23445, 27 September 1941, Page 5

HAPPY PUBLISHER

CURRENT BOOKS

♦ . I Liked the Life I Lived. By Evelcigh , Nash. John Murray. 180 pp. (9/- • net.) During the half century or so covered in these reminiscences Mr Nash has spent some 40 years as literary agent and publisher, with an interlude of war service at the Admiralty, and 10 years more in a retirement for which he had happily prepared himself by never failing, as Johnson said, to "keep, his friendships in repair.” Of these the bock is an amusing and charming record, intertwined with the story of an enterprising business career. Mr Nash was bent towards the. issue of well-produced but cheap reprints from • the time of his prentice partnership with Bliss, Sands, and Foster; and many readers whose shillings were few will remember gratefully the riches for which they could be exchanged, 20 years ago, in his Great Novel Library and Famous Fiction Library. It was he, also, who launched a dozen volumes of O. Henry’s stories at once on the English market, which had, fill then, unaccountably ignored them. He had a keen eye for best-seller promise, pounced on E. M. Hull’s “The Sheik, ’ when other publishers had jibbed at it, and confidently encouraged Sands (who “laughed till he cried” at a reading of some sentimental samples) to start Charles Garvice on his heartfluttering way. But greater names were on Mr Nash’s lists; R. B. Cunninghame Graham, Joseph Conrad, Algernon Blackwood, Belloc, and Morley Roberts, for example. A real achievement was the founding of “Nash’s Magazine,” to which he drew first-class contributors. Rider Haggard was one, and as such gave Mr Nash the pleasure of his shortest and most satisfactory interview with an author. Haggard had supplied a serial novel, entitled “Maqueda.” Mr Nash wanted to call it “Queen Sheba’s Ring." Hence the interview: Rider Haggard . . . entered the room and remained standing in spite of an invitation to take a seat.' ■ “Why do you prefer ‘Queen Sheba’s Ring’ to ‘Maqueda?’" he asked. "Because,” I replied, “there’s romance in. the title, and women love a story about a ring.” ‘‘Good,’’ he answered, "call it ‘Queen Sheba's Ring,’ ” and took his departure. As. for stories that arise otherwhere than along the path of literary commerce, they are innumerable and many are excellent. It may be old, but one of the best revives the occasion when a Presbyterian minister, called on at short notice to preach before Queen Victoria in Crathie Church, was “so carried away . . . that he burst into the following supplication to the Almighty on her behalf”: ; Grant, oh Lord, that as she grows into an old woman she may be made a new man, and that in all righteous' causes she may go forth before her people like a ' he-goat on the mountains. •STRANGE DWELLINGS (i) Living in Queer Houses. By B. G. Hardingham. (ii) Living in Boats. By Cyril Hall. Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd. (3/- net each.) These two books, copiously and well illustrated with line drawings, bring to children in a fascinating form. a Meat deal of information about the e and livelihood of people in lands —and in times —far from their own; and they do it by fixing interest centrally on the various ways in which the housing problem is solved, and on the reasons for this variety. Thus Mr Hardingham turns from the North Australian Wurly, of hut of bark and leaves, to the Zulu’s house of grass, the Eskimo’s igloo, the magnificent “mud” buildings of the Hadhramaut, the Japanese paper houses, the reed shelter of the Hungarian cattle-man, and so on; and his account of the building, fitting, and running of each is explained and completed by reference to the conditions of soil, climate, and labour to which it is adapted. Mr Hall, again, roves the world to show how practically and ingeniously men have adapted themselves to living on the waters of sea, lake, or river, and in craft as practically and ingeniously contrived. Where there is no wood, rushes will make a boat; on a tor-rent-broken river, the Chinese make rafts of inflated ox-skins, easy to deflate, pack, and carry upstream again by land. There is something here about life on. the barges of the great European canal system: on the vast timber-rafts of the Oregon; in the Mediterranean fishing-fleets; on the Arab dhows, whose sailors face the odd peril of dust-storms at sea, and in many other scenes and conditions. It would be hard to over-praise these books. Children from 10 to 15 will enjoy them most. AT A GLANCE New Order Mr Kenneth Ingram in The Night is Far Spent (Allen and Unwin. 126 pp. 5s net.) drives directly to the moral and religious questions raised by hopes of democracy’s triumph and progress and in the definition of its aims. “The serious problem which.the new civilisation will have to face is that of . , . the relation of individual liberty and independence to social, personal service,” says Mr Ingram. “And. ultimately, this problem can only be resolved by the. religious influence.” Mr Ingram attaches a very positive meaning to that: The Kingdom of' Heaven remains an abstraction unless we can relate it to political and social action, unless ws know how to build it. what is to be the next stage of design, what are the immediate obstacles to be overcome, and how we shall meet them. That is where I find the demeanour of many Christians to be so desperately unsatisfactory. His book is a challenge to them. Conrad Miss M, C. Bradbrook in her study of Joseph Conrad (Cambridge University Press, 80 pp. 3/6 net.) discovers and explains the peculiar relevance of his art, in substance and spirit, to the present conflict of arms and ideas: By the peculiar history of his country, his family, and himself. Conrad knew horrors almost equal with those of .to-day; and in this particularly commanding position he was fitted to be an example of a "good European”—a type which belongs not to the past but to the future. ... He loved England most proudly. France most warmly. Poland most deeply. His reconciliation of their conflicting claims, and his sympathy with the best of what was common to the three, is his final triumph of reducing the complex to the simple, and the one which deserves the gratitude of all. The author’s profits on this excellent essay are assigned to the Polish Refugee Fund. War Finance The New South Wales branch of the Economic Society of Australia and New Zealand inaugurates a series of studies of war-time economic problems with Australia Foots the Bill (Angus and Robertson Ltd. 128 pp. 4/6), a review of Australian war finance, 193941. by S. J. Butlin. T. K. Critchley. R, B. McMillan, and A. H. Tange. The facts and issues treated in this discussion of Commonwealth policy have plenty of interest in New Zealand. The quotation of one general comment may illustrate that. “It is our belief that a serious weakness of the Commonwealth Government." say the authors, “has been its failure to explain more fully to the general public the meaning and purpose of economic policy in war.” No Compromise “I write as a Trade Union Secretary,” says Mr W. J. Brown in his little book, What Have I to Lose? (Alley and Unwin. 91 pp. 2/6 net.). As such, as one who looks for large political and economic changes, he insists that the freedom to reach them depends on “the maintenance of our British way of life.” and that it cannot be held unless Hiller and Hitlerism are beaten, “dccisivelv and overwhelmingly”: and he writes therefore, with admirable force, to counter the propaganda of defeatism and indifference and propaganda for a negotiated peace. Political Play Henry Jellett describes his one-act play Wisha, God Help Us! (Caxton Press. 24 pp. 2/-) as “an absurdity.” Readers (and spectators, perhaps?) will reh hj according to their wit and their politics this dramatic commentary on the neutrality of Eire, and decida where the absurdity really lies.