BOOKS and AUTHORS.

Dominion, Volume 15, Issue 278, 19 August 1922, Page 16

BOOKS and AUTHORS.

By

LIBER.

Give a man a pipe he can smoks. Give a man a book he can read: ' And his home is bright with a calm delight Though the room be poor indeed. ' b \ -JAMES THOMSON.

BOOKS OF THE DAY? "T ' ■ " ' ' ' i

“Countries of tho Mind.” Mr. J. Middleton Murry iff one of the leading English literary critics — he was for a time editor of “The Athenaeum.” now incorporated with “The Nation”—and has produced a volume of poems and a couple of novels, both widely praised for their fine literary quality. Also, so it may be interesting to New Zealand readers of his works to know, he is tho husband of that clever Wellington lady whoso two volumes of short stories, published under the notn de plume of Katherine Massfield, have won such favourable notice in leading English and. American reviews. The latest book to come from Mr. Murry, “Countries of tho Mind: Essays in Literary Criticism” (Wm. Collins, Sons, and Co., per Whitcombe and Tombs), is a supplement to his earlier volumes, "Aspects of Literature” and “The Problem of Style.” The majority of the essays collected in the new volume appeared originally as “front page” articles in “The Times Weekly Literary Supplement,” or are reprinted from such high-class periodicals as “The London Mercury,” ,f‘The Nation and Athenaeum.” apd the American magazine ‘ The Dial. \ Three of the essays, those dealing with Amiel,’ Baudelaire, and Flaubert, were written as centenary articles. There are two excellent essays on “Shakespeare and Love” and “A Neglected Heroine of- Shakespeare” (Virgilia in “Coriolanus”)', and for those who love “old time” literature there is a specially delightful article on Burton’s famous “Anatomy of Melancholy, the “only book,” so Dr. Johnson, told Boswell, “which ever took him out of bed two hours earlier than he wished to rise.” Sterne’s “Tristram Shandy owed much of its quaint wit to the “Anatomy,” and both Charles Lamb and Keats were great admirers of it, Keats undoubtedly taking the story "Lamia” from "Democritus J u “ or ' Mr Murry also introduces us to a hairforgotten poet, John Clare, “the peasant poet',’’ who was a contemporary of Keats. Poor Clare ended his career in an asylum, but in his day he wrote many beautiful lines. “A singer born, Mr. Murry calls him. „ "Clare’s most beautiful poetry, savs Mr. Murry, “is a gesture of impulsive tenderness. It has a suddenness, almost a catch in the voice: -

The very darkness smiles to wear The stars that show us God is there. Mr. Murry writes, too, very thoughtfully and very pleasantly upon tho poetry of that quite latter-day singer, Mr. Walter de la Mare, who has, he says, “given a perfect expression to some of the deepest and most character! st io moods of this generation. Other essays deal with the great Stendhal, whose "Chartreuse dp . Parme and “Le Rouge et<le Noir” are now hailed by the younger French critics as great classics of fiction, on the poetry of William Collins, and on that wonderful book of Oriental travel and philosophy, Doughty’s “Arabia Desert.” In the last essay, A Critical Credo,” the author lays down. certain canons for tho .literary critic, and makes some very thoughtful and pertinent remarks upon reviewing. (N.A. price, 13s. 6d.)

"Plum” Warner on Cricket, From Messrs. J. M. Dent and Co., London (per Whitcombe and Tombsy Loitdon), comes a revised and muebenlarged edition of Mr. "Plum’,’ Warner’s "Book of Cricket,” originally published to 1911. Mr. Warner has now brought up to date a book which may fairly be considered one of the classics of cricket. New illustrations and new biographical notices have been added, and a special feature is the author’s masterly analysis of the sensational cricket season of 1921. lhe victories of the Australians, the probable'causes of the English.dgfeats, ■are examined to detail. Mr. Warner has also a good deal to say on the reform of the English county cricket organisation. For the rest, the booK remains what it was when first published, one of thq most usefully informative and agreeably critical works on British and Australian cricket yet published. The author has played ths good old English game not only m the Mother Country, but <n Australia, New Zealand, Canada, India, and even in the United States, and has thus acquired an “all world,” as it were, kn< wlodge of the game as it is played by amateurs and professionals in temperate and tropic climes, and by all .sorts and conditions of men that few other writers on cricket can hope to possess. • The illustrations are nt meious and most interesting, including as they do, portraits of leading English and Ausrtralian: crtcket-rlrs, diagrajns of field-placing, etc. The i-nalyses of cricket records, both of batting and bowling, the character sketches or prominent exponents of the glorious old English game, English and dverseas, are all most useful, and it was a happy* thouglit to include thfc ‘Laws or Cricket,” to which reference is .necessarily so frequently made in the course of the,book. Without a copy of MrWarner’s book ,it is safe to say that no good cricketer’s or cricket lover’s library can be considered complete. "Old London Town.”

“Old London Town,” by Will Owen | (London, Jarrold and Son), is a collection of short articles, each accompanied by an illustration dealing with the niany quaint old buildings. . which American and New Zealand visitors to London find so much pleasure in visiting. The old buildings in The Staple Inn, Clifford’s Inn (the now being demolished), the old half-timbered houses at Holborn, trig quaint old inns at Hampstead, beloved of Dickens and his friends—«the Spaniards, Jack Straw’s Castle, and the Old Bull and Bush—“ Dirty Dick s in Bishopsgate Street, the George In Southwark (reputed to have been the scene of Mr. Pickwick’s first introduction to Mr. Samuel Weller,junior), Dr. Johnson’s house in Gough Square, Carlyle’s house at Chelsea, and dozens of other famous old houses, inns, churches, and monuments are here. I notice, however, that Mr. Owen repeats tho old legend that Johnson was a regular frequenter of ‘ The Cheshire Cheese,” a quaint old tavern off Fleet Street, where they show you Dr. Johnson’s chair and other alleged relics of fiim whom* Becky Sharp s "mistress, Miss Pinkerton, called "the great lexicographer.” As a matter of fact, there is not an atom of reliable evidence to show that Johnson ever went there. Boswell never mentions the "Cheese,” and Dr. Birkbeck Hill, that most painstaking of Johnsonians, utterly failed to find any contemporary reference to Johnson as having been one of its customers. Also, so I notice. Mr. Owen gives us a picture of that complete fraud, tho alleged “Dickens s Old Curiosity Shop,” which is to be found, in a little street near Lincoln’s Inn Fields. For many years, despite explicit statements by the late Charles Dickens junior, by Mr (now Sir) Henry Fielding Dickens (“Boz s only surviving son>, and other members of the Dickens family, that the building in question is not the one described in the novel; it has been the object of pious pilgrimages by Americans and

others who purchase picture post-cards there and various Dickens' souvenirs. Still, it is a picturesque, if very tumbledown old place, and if people must be sentimental over its alleged connection with little Nell, Dick Swiveller, and the rest of them, the illusion is quito a harmless one. Mr. Owen’s illustrations are excellent. In his( text he is apt to be a little too deliberately humorous, but bis pictures are, as Mrs. Betsy Prig said of “the drinks” on a famous occasion, “all good.” (N.Z. grice ••psychology.” Professor Woodworth, author of "Psychology: A Study of Mental Life” (Methuen and Co.), occupies the important position of Professor of Psychology in Columbia University,, New Yoyir, and is recognised as one of tho most distinguished teachers of psychology in the United States. His book, which is put forward as a complete introduction to the science of psychology, is an extremely well ordered presentation and ai) authoritative treatment of the facta.' It has been specially prepared for tho use of students, but should appeal also 'to the general reader. It is thoroughly up io date, the author having freely selected from the now large mass of psychological information which has been made available by the studies and experiments of leading American, British, and Continental psychologists. Two excellent features of a book which, throughout its five hundred odd pages, is written with a most commendable clarity, are the lists of references apr pended to tho several chapters and exercises) by which the student can test his grasp of the. instruction he has received. There is also an unusually good index. (N.Z., price, Ils. 6d.’i Miscellaneous.

Mr. R. Edisoni Page, the author of “The Life Force?’ (Jonathan Cape, ner AVhitcombe and Tombs, London), is apparently an 'American, at least so I should judge by his spelling of subtle as "subtil,” his allusions to "booze-sollers,” and his coupling Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy with "Nicrotris, Sappho, Aspasia, "Clodia. Faustina, Joan of Aro and Florence Nightingale” I Mr. Taylor discourses at some length upon what he calls the “Life Force’.’; other names of which, as given by him, are: "The Logos,” the TsaJo. Prana, the CategoriMl Imperative, the Absolute, the Will to Live, the Everlasting Yea, the External Mob, , Ourselves, that makes for Righteousness, tho Cosmio Urge. ... As far as I can understand his argument it is merely another outcome of that ‘New \ Biot (American pronunciation) which is to produce tho most wonderful effects, it only persisted in long enough—think so and iw, think it hard', think it day and night and what you think should bo, will be I ‘ "A most comforting faith for some people, but truth to fell, Mr. Pago’s book scarcely encourage!! one to embrace and hold such a, doctrine. Mr. Henry Baerlein, author of A. Difficult Frontier: Yugoslavs and Albanians (Leonard Parsons) is well known as an experienced war correspondent and special authority on Eastern European problems. In the present work he describes the embarrassing question which is opening up as a result of the establishment of a precarious frontier by tho Paris. Conference. i Mr. Baorlein examines the case for a free Albania, and although his personal sympathies would seem to favour the Yugo-SlaV side of a tangled, controversy, he writes . with laudablo Of tho picturesque strangeness of the border populatlon he gives a very interesting description. In ‘"The Class-Room Republic” (A. and U, Black Ltd.), Mr. Ernest A. Craddock, M.A., formmaster and senior French master at an important London secondary school, gives an account of an interesting experiment in educational administration, the cqnduct of which he Bays has been the "happiest and most fruitful” of all his teaching experience. Spacs limits preclude a detailed description here of Mr. Craddock’s ischame, under which pupils arid teachers find themselves in active and —in til® author’s experience—very happy s-nd useful co-operation. Suffice it to say that while at first the principles laid down may bo such as to raise doubt in certain conservative educational! minds as to the probable benefits of the scheme; a perusal of Mr. Craddock’s book will remove many of the objections which might at first be raised. Certainly the scheme seems to have one decidedly good result, the encouragement and development of much greater individuality in the pupil than is usually attained under older systems. (N.Z. price 3s. 6d.). Dr. Edwin L. Ash, the author of “Middle Age, Health, and Fitness” (Mills and Boon, per Whitcombe and Tombs), gives a bright and hopeful message to those who aro approaching or have reached middle age. As ho says, good health., is an essential to the enjoyment of middle Ufa, a* in the more buoyant time of youth. How good health can be secured by duo attention being paid to diet, digestion, sleep exercise, and other matters, is set forth by the author in a series of brightlv-written papers, in which, so far as possible, professional medical technicalities ar® avoided. (N.Z. price, Gs. Gd.)

Stray Leaves. I wonder how many of my readers know a novel called "Howard’s End, written byWlr. E. M. Forster (sajd to be a nom do plume) and published shortly before the war. At first I was puzzled a little by its resemblance to the late Henry James’s novels, but I jiersevered. and found it a most original and very delightful book. Other stories by tho some author non s of which,- however, I have road ; are- “WhertKAngels Fear to -tread, "A Room With a View,” and "Tho Longest Journey.” All are warmly praised by a correspondent of the “London Times.” A new novel from Mr. Forster is* said to be forthcoming during the English autumn. A Mr D. E. Enfield has written a "Life of Louise Caleb,” the lady who so largely influenced Gustavo Flaubert’s life. According to an English literarj' gossiper she was “a strange, •unhappy, morbid, jealous woman, itne Cinderella of the brilliant circle composeff of do Mussot Sainte Beuvo, de Vigny, George Sand, and other members of the highly vitalised group who knew so much of each other s lovo affairs.” Mr. Enfield’s hook has for title “A Eady of the Salons. I have always considered Mrs. hxlitn Wharton to be America’s loading novelist—did' you over read that fine story, "The House of Mirth” ?—and I am glad to see that Messrs. Appletons will shortly publish an entirely new story fj’om her pen, entitled “Glimpses of the Moon.” Tho same publiahors announce a new story, “lhe 4an Roon,” bv that clever English novelist, Mr. J. O. Snaith. The plot is said to revolve round, tho discovery and struggle for a valuable "old mast<JTho 'last book to come from Robert

W. Service, the Alaskan poet, whose "Songs of a Sour'Dough” and “Ballads of a Cheechako” were at one time very popular, was a volume x>f verse descriptive of Bohemian life in Pans. Mr. Service has now turned, 1 am glad to read, to tho field of fiction. A novel by him, entitled “The Spell oi tho Yukon,” is to bq published very shortly A complete new library edition of Herman Melville’s books is contemplated'by a New York publisher. Personally, I only want “Moby Dick. In these days of small houses and limited bookshelf accommodation one only wants an author s best, not his lull ° U As U a rule a book of poetry does not sell very well, but although Ihomas Hardy’s “Late Lynes and Earlier” has only been out a couple of months or so a sale of over 5000 copies has already been recorded. , As far back as 1908 there appeared a novel entitled “Maurice Guest, by H B Richardson. .A n?w edition has test been published by xl H ® lnema ""’ plus an introduction by that popular novelist, Mr. Hugh Walpole, who remarks: “‘Maurice Guest first appeared in 1908; sine® then it may be said that no week has passed; m which some one, somewhere, has not said to someone else, ‘Have you read a book called “Maurice Guest” ? If not you d bettor do so at once. After this I shall keep an eye wide open tor tne new edition. SOME RECENT FICTION Translations from Turgenev. With a volume (the seventeenth of the series), entitled "Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories” (Wm. Heinemann), Mrs. Constance Garnett completes the translation of the whole of Turgenev’s novels and short tales. Io many English readers Turgenev is the only Russian novelist whom they can read with any great pleasure. Tolstoi’s great epics and his ethically-in-spired short stories they do not care for and Dostoevsky they consider too possimistio and dreary. But Turgenev, who has been called the least Russian 'of all the Russians, has always been popular -both with Lienen and English readers, and to-day, with Tchokov, the Russian- De Maupassant 1 - is getting a big hearing from the younger generation of modern Europe. The five stories In Mrs. Garnett’s concluding volume vary greatly in subject and style. The title story and "rhe Dog” are merely slight, impressionistic sketches, but “The Inn” and "The Watch” are powerful little dramas or provincial life, and “Lieutenant gunov’s Story” is an effective little romance. In all those stories, as. indeed, in all their predecessors, Turgenev seems to write with a certain air of detachment. Ho is always the onlooker, the recorder, but how observant is his eye, how shrewd his insight into human character. lhe thanks of the English reading public are duo to tho translator for her painstaking performance 6f what must have been a very lengthy and onerous task, and to tho publishers for tho neat and comely little volumes in (which the translations are presented. With a set of Turgenev and one of Tcjiekov on his shelves, an English reader has at his command a rich mine of pleasantlyconveyed information as to Russian life, the life of all classes of society—• long previous, of course, to the advent of tiio existing regime. An Italian Novel.

>"Tho Woman and the Priest” (Jonaj’ than Capo; per Whitcombo , and Tombs. London) is a translation, by Mary G, Heegmann, of fi “La Madre by the Italian novelist, Grazia Deledda. It is a very tragic story, the principal figures being a young priest and his devoted mother, whose life savings had been spent' upon hor son’s religious education. The man is regarded almost as a saint m his native village, but, alas, he succumbs to fleshly temptation in the person of 'a beautiful young woman, who eventually threatens to expose him at tho early Mass. All three are at ■ the church, lEtHfmng priest, the revengeful woman and the aged and devoted mother. Tragedy is in the air, and actually comes, fat* whilst the young woman’s spirit of revenge dies away in face of the agdny of mind the priest is suffering and she kneels down at tho altar rails, tho aged Elena, a prey to intense terror lest the threatened blow should fall upon her much beloved son. is stricken bv death. The story is told with great delicacy, combined in places with a compelling .dramatic force. The scene is laid in a little Sardinian village, the local colour being very picturesque. “Secret Harvest."

A, horrible outrage committed upon an English girl by a German officer is the keynote of Miss Percival’s fine story "Secret 'Harvest” (Wm. Heine-: mann). The mysterious secret which" is the real cause of the contrast' in the characters of the two young Stannards is not disclosed until the final chapter is reached, .when the truth as to the real paternity of Felix, who believes himself to be the son of John Stannard and assumes he will inherit the beautiful farm in the Cotswolds, is unfolded and poor Ruth Stannard’s life tragedy comes to light. . The story is of the present day, its chief interest lying in the author’s, quite., brilliant presentment of the psychological problem involved in the strange jealousies and inward enmities of the legitimate son, Ripley, and Felix, the illegitimate, supposed stepson. It is impossible not to feel sorry for the wayward, dictatorial and selfish Felix, when at last the family lawyer, after reading tho will, is compelled to uhveil the ugly skeleton in the Stannard closet. He is not a nice character is Felix, but he pays heavily for the sin of his. unknown father. A moving, well-written story, with some clever character drawing, and a very charming, peaceful setting in the beautiful Cotswolds.

"The Haunted Woman.” The scene of Mr. David. Lindsay’s story, “The Haunted Woman” (Meth-

uen and Co.), is an old manor house, Runhill Court, in Sussex. The heroine, Isbel Loment, engaged to an eligible parti, Marshall Stokes, is a well-to-do young woman who inherits a small fortune and enters into negotiations to buy a quaint old Elizabethan house, which is invested with a decided atmosphere of "spookiness.” Gradually and almost insensibly Isbel becomes curiously fascinated by the ola house, to which sho is drawn again and again as if by t some magnetic power. The story deals zwith tho rela<tions of the. heroine and the owner of the house! Henry Judge, who is mysteriously affected by supernatural influences connected with his property, and ends, for that gentleman and for Isbel, ip tragedy. The story, which possesses several well-drawn secondary characters, is very well written, and in its own uncanny way is decidedly fascinating. “On with the Motley." “On with the Motley.” by Hylton Cleaver (Mills and Boon), is a. pretty, and, in places, very amusing story. The hero, Basil Ingram, had, even as a child, some quite heroic ambitions, but fate ordained that his, romance ■ should be marred by his having to find a living on the music hall stage, and to this an equally romantic but delightful young lady called Amose decidedly objects. The hero is temporarily in deepest despair when the villain of the piece provides an opportunity for. the long buried dreams of knightly gallantry to come up again. For B the 7 pretty Amose is (ibducted by a wicked/ would-be lover, and imprisonto his lonely house,, whereupon the hero, leaving the musio hall, nlav a kinema rolo, goes to the rescue, and all is well. The author ®l®X contrasts the commonplace and rath ® r sordid environment upon the hero with that ideally romantic career which had been the drcam of his youth The story is written throughout with an engaging vivacity. “The Film of Fortune.” Miss Monica Ewqr’s story, “The Film of Fortune” (Methuen and Lq-), has for its principal characters two ingenious and ambitious young men plus more than one very charming young lady, who engage to various graph ventures, and' become thereby involved in a long- scries of sometimes very droll, sometimes rather unpleasant experiences and adventures. When tho story starts the only "assets in eight of the Tip Top Cinema Company outside a scenario from which a fortune is hoped —are “five and nmopence to cash, a roll-top desk, three ( office chairs, two hited cameras, and an unpaid camera man.” But the two chief partners. Jim Masters and George Casson, are young gentlemen of considerable ingenuity and resource,-ana although when the story ends five and ninepenoe is still their available capitai. they; have had a wonderfully good time, and tho future, according to the ever optimistic pair,\ is quito bright, despite the fact that a millionaire has “clicked” their leading lady, the delightful Cynthia. A very jolly story, with many amusing sidelights on Bohemian life in London.,

We are to have a new Conrad book from tho firm of T. Fisher Unwin, which publishel “The Arrow of Gold’ and “Tho Rescue.” The title is “The Rover and Other Tales.” The book will contain four separate stories. It was Fisher Unwin, by the way, who published Conrad’s first two books, “Almayer’s Folly” and “lhe Outcast of the Islands.” 1 First editions of these books —the first English editions, the Colonial Library editions have no special value—aro now worth anything between £5 and £B, according to condition. , , Th© American price of ‘‘Evorymian s Library” has been reduced, so I notice, by tenpence a volume. When, I wonder, will the Australian and New Zealand price suffer an equal drop?