BOOKS and AUTHORS’

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 52, 24 November 1928, Page 31

BOOKS and AUTHORS’

A Weekly Survey

By

“Liber”

BOOKS OF THE DAY The Foreign Legion in Syria. Books on the Foreign Legion continue to appear with astonishing regularity. We all know, of course, “Beau Geste” and its two successors, and not a few oldsters will .recall Ouida’s “Under Two Flags,” which, undeniably quite impossible in some of its details, was nevertheless so excitingly readable a novel. A recent example of this class of literature, this time, claiming to be an autobiographical narrative, is Mr. John Harvey’s “With the Foreign Legion in Syria” (Hutchinson and Co.) the author being a “demobbed” British soldier, who, down and out, decides upon joining the French corps, the Foreign Legion. He is attracted by the promise of ten francs a day pay with a bonus of 5000 francs, a promise which, alas, he found, once he was in France, and had signed up, to be practically worthless. After experiences at Marseilles, Tunis, and the African centre of the Legion’s activity, the author is shipped off with a number of others to Syria to fight against the famous Druses. Mr. Harvey draws a series of ugly but most vivid pictures of the life of a legionaire, of the glowing heroism of which some of the men are capable, of the brutish degradation of so many of them, the ferocity of many of the officers, the utter loss of hope of the majority of soldiers. It is a veritable hell upon earth which he describes. Apparently in Syria the conditions were as bad as at Lousse. Eventually the author attempted to desert He did not succeed; but was captured and sentenced to eight years imprisonment and clapped into jail at Damascus. Of the horrors of his jail life he writes at length. ■ Eventually, he was transferred from Damascus to 'Marseilles—“we were manacled and chained together like galley slaves on the way—Lyons, and thence to Albertville in. the Haute Savoie, but owing to representations made by some friends to the British Government, was finally released. (16/-.) Education in Scotland. Mr. Alexander Morgan, M.A. D.Sc., prefaces his book, “Rise and Progress of Scottish Education” (Oliver and Boyd), by remarking that the progress of education in Scotland should be a subject of some interest to other countries, in that the problems of education, in whatever guise they present themselves, are everywhere fundamentally the same. The ideals underlying the policy of continuous education, from the primary school to the university, have been, he says, “in the lifeblood of the people, and the latest Education Acts are but attempts to bring them into execution.” Mr. Morgan now gives a short and fairly comprehensive account of the origin and growth of Scottish education in all its forms, and the detailed information given as to the history and present condition of Scottish education, should be of no small interest and value here in New Zealand. (135.) English Life Literature. The first volume of a new series, “English Life in English Literature” (Methuen and Co.), of which the -general-editors are Eileen Power and A. W. Reed, both holding high positions in the University of London, is now published under the title, “England, from Chancer to Caxton.” The author’s object is to draw material entirely from contemporary books, not as is so often the case, from historical records of great interest, but little literary value. By this means, the actual social history of the people is exhibited as opposed to the traditional “drum and trumpet” history, of .twhich, previous to Green, we had such a surfeit. The quotations given illustrate life in the home, the village, and the town, special sections being demoted to “church life,” and “foreign life,” its our ancestors could learn of it in contemporary literature. An excellent idea, well carried out. Further volumes will carry along the record, .through Spencer, Shakespeare, Defoe, Btinyan and Johnson, to Wordsworth and Dickens (Bs.)

The Mosquito. Mr. A. Moore Hogarth, F.E.S., the author of “British Mosquitoes and Howto Exterminate Them” (Hutchinson and Co.) lays stress upon the fact that the British mosquito is not merely “a seasonable nuisance,” and in support of this statement gives particulars of twenty-one deaths in seven years, which have been definitely traced, or at least reasonably attributed, to mosquito bites in Great Britain. His little book, which is illustrated by many drawings and diagrams, affords a general acquaintance with the insects, their life history, methods of identification, and includes a number of practical and handy references as to how to deal with the problem. Mr. Hogarth’s little book should be read with interest in New Zealand, by sanitary inspectors, Boy Scoutsi Girl Guides and all interested in public hygiene. (4s. 6d.) LIBER’S NOTE-BOOK It will astonish most people to learn that “Peter Pan” has never been printed: Hodder and Stoughton are now bringing it out in their uniform edition of Sir James Barrie’s plays, with all its whimsical stage direction and a special preface. Edgar Wallace says that during the twelve' months ended last March, five million copies of his novels have been sold. The public appetite for literary “tosh,” is apparently insatiable. As a matter of fact Wallace’s sensational stories are not to be compared for constructive ability and clever characterisation with those of Freeman Wills Crofts, the Coles and other writers. , , . . Hilaire Belloc’s new book is to be on “The Tactics and Strategy of the Great Duke of Marlborough.” Only a week or two ago the famous old mill near Cambridge at GrantChester, rendered famous by Matthew Arnold, Rupert Brooke, and others was destroyed oy fire and I now read in an English paper that the Cafe des Westens, where Rupert Brooke wrote his poem “Grantchester”’ has recently been closed down. Two books by the much discussed Mussolini are to appear shortly. One is an autobiography, the other a novel written when the Italian statesman was 2C and a violent socialist. It deals with the love affairs of a cardinal and a beautiful woman. His present day ultra clerical supporters will scarcely approve. John Masefield is engaged on a new poem dealing with some of the legends of the Knights of the Round Table.. Tennyson used the same motif, but as Edward (Omar) Fitzgerald declared, his later versa, the interminable “Idylls of the King” were never to be compared with his earlier poems. _lf you want to enjoy Masefield’s fine L kwius. read Ills famous hunting poem.

In his “Roamin’ in the Gloaming” (Hutchinson), Harry Lauder tells how he got his trial run—as a music hall singer at the Old Scotia in Glasgow. The lady who then ran the famous hall, a Mrs. Baylis “looked me up and down, and said, what are ye and ‘l’m i. comic,’ ” I replied. Well, all I can say is that ye don’t look one.” Then she turned to her desk and went on working. “I’m really nae sae bad Mrs. Baylis,” I pleaded. “Gie me a chance an’ ‘l’m mak ’em laugh.” I suppose the doleful expression on my face moved the dear old lady to reconsider the matter. “Laddie,” she smiled, “Ye’re makin’ me laugh already. I’ll let ye loose among ’em for a- minute or two. Ye’ll maybe sorry ye were sae persistent” For a long time book lovers have wanted a. complete Congreve, well edited, at a reasonable price. The Nonesuch edition, in four volumes, will cost you, if you can secure a copy, five or six pounds but the World’s Classics edition (Oxford University Press) is to be complete in two volumes and you can get them for 3s. 6d. each. Years ago I bought the first volume and now I see the second and completing volume is at last to be published. Hugh Walpole, who lives part of the year at his quaint countryhouse up near Grasmere has finished a novel entitled “Hans Frost,” which is to be published early next year. He has also on the stocks a long novel of eighteenth century life in Cumberland, called “Rogue Herries,” but when it will be finished he says “the lord only knows.” To Heinemann’s finely printed uniform edition of George Moore’s writings was to be added, last month, the Irish novelist’s “Story Teller’s Holiday,” originally published, at three guineas, in an autographed, privately printed from the new edition is to be in two volumes and will include Mr. Moore’s “Ulick and Soracha,” also first published in a separate, privately printed form. I wish Mr. Heinemann would put “Esther Waters,” and “A Mummer's Wife” in this uniform edition. Mr. Knopf also announces: General John Charteris, and Admiral Sir Reginald Bacon’s “Life of Lord Fisher.”

Sundry Stories. Adventure of many kinds, plus an agreeable sentimental interest, permeates Whitman Chambers’s “Contrabrand Coast” (T. Nelson and Sons), a novel which brings one back again to the old-time thrills of gun-running and intrigue in South America.

Fred S. Sandeman’s “Riders of the West” (Nelson) is a vigorously told yarn of cowboys and cattle thieves—local term “rustlers” —in Montana, a story full of those thrills which specially delight! lovers of the Wild West class qf fiction. In “Partners Three” (Thomas Y. Crowell Co., per Dymocks, Sydney), Elby Wagner challenges comparisons, with a stirring story of adventure in Alaska, with the best efforts in that direction of Mr. Rex Beach. It is a story of one of the earlier gold rushes up the Yukon, the rescue of a girl by two men from the treacherous rapids of an Alaskan river, and the experiences of the three partners in mining ventures.

Mrs. Henry Dudeny always writes a good story, with a special charm for all who know sunny Sussex. Her latest novel, “Brighton Beach” (Wm. Collins, Sons and Co.), should particularly please all who know the famous Sussex seaside resort and the Downs country. Mrs. Barrie Goldie in “The Hand of the Waverleys” (Andrew Melrose) deals with the somewhat unpleasant theme of family madness. Amongst recent reprints are “A Mistaken Marriage," by Mills Young, the well-known writer of South African stories (The Bodley Head); Kathleen Norris’s very popular novel, “The Story of Julia Page” (John Murray).

Mrs. L. Allen Harker’s stories of young people, stories which began, if we remember aright, with that excellent novel, “Miss Esperance and Mr. Wycherley,” have won such widespread popularity that their publisher, Mr. John Murray, has now issued them in a half-crown edition, of which there have been recently been issued “The Really Romantic Age,” “The Vagaries of Tod and Peter,” and “The Children of the Cotswolds.”

Yet another Connie Morgan yarn, “Connie Morgan in the Fur Country,” comes from Mr. James B. Henryx (Jarrolds). Connie Morgan, stalwart, true, courageous, now wends his adventurous way into the land of the trapper, the Great White North, the land of unmapped mountains and lonely trails, and as usual goes through the most exciting experiences. • —— — SOME RECENT FICTION From Hodder and Stoughton. Messrs. Hodder and Stoughton" continue to cater liberally in the provision of fiction for the entertainment of lovers of light literature. Mr. J. C. Smith, author of “Surrender,” tells the exciting story of the adventurous experiences of two men, one English, the other American, who desert from the French Foreign Legion and after years of hardship and incredible adventures in the desert and the wildest places of Africa, reach Cairo and then London, each owing his life to the exercise of the other’s will. They come to be rivals for the love of a woman of great beauty and magnetic personality, the problem only being solved by an act of supreme self-sacrifice by the one. “Stone Blunts Scissors,” by Gerald Fairlie (Hodder) is a story of two detectives who meet again the stime ingenious scoundrel, “Brain,” first introduced in Mr. Fairlie’s earlier story, “Scissors Cut Paper,” who really did not die as readers of the previous novel might have thought. The daughter of an American millionaire is kidnapped and held for ransom, the services of the two Scotland Yard sleuths being called in to supplement those of the .Paris “Surete.” Villainy vanquished and Caryll being specially victorious, reaping a rich sentimental reward. Miss Louise Jordan Miln, the author of “The Flutes of Shanghai,” is always at home against a Chinese background. In her new story, she skilfully depicts both Oriental and European characters, the story incidentally throwing a powerful searchlight on Chinese affairs of the present day and of the peril to British interests in the East. “The Broken Cup,” by E. 0. Browne, . is a well-told historical novel of the “days when England’s soul was being I forged anew,,’ men and women of | Saxon and Norman descent jn Henry.

the First’s time being the principal characters.

Two Wild West stories, “Mesquite Jenkins,” by Clarence Mulford, in which Hoppalong Cassidy’s pal takes the trail,” and William McLeod Raine’s new story, “Colorado,” gives a Western yarn of the best type, providing a vivid, and thrilling picture of the old Overland Trail in the stirring days following upon the rush of the “FortyNiners.” A story full of sentimental as well as of adventurous interest. Some Cassell Fiction.

Gustav Lazio’s novel, “Spires, Bells, and Dreams,” a story of the Second Coming (Cassell) is a story of postwar Prague, its principal figure being a wealthy and brilliantly intellectual Jew, Marick, whom a great Jewish World’s Conference proclaims leader. Other prominent Jews, a dreamer called Israel, and the terribly just Cohen are prominent in the movement for the regeneration and coming world power of the Jewish race, but Marick has mortally offended his most recent mistress, Sophie Stendall, of whom it might have been written that “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” and she pushes her vengeance to securing his downfall from power and his ultimate stoning in the streets of Prague. A powerful out-of-the-way story which loses force, however, by the farcical nature of some of its minor incidents. Douglas Newton’s “Eyes of Men (Cassell) is the story of an impressionable girl, Gina Harr, fresh from a convent school, who is suddenly thrust into the whirlpool of life, goes on to the vaudeville stage, and is subjected to many curious and often evil antagonistic influences, which make her life story deeply interesting. Bert Taverner turns out a forgiving lover, but the family does not all consist of lovable sympathetic people, and poor Gina is more sinned against than sinnings. The inner side of music-hall life also is pourtrayed with a truth which is sometimes rather ugly. Sir Gilbert Parker’s “The Promised Land” (Cassell) is for this well-known writer decidedly a new and interesting departure, being a reconstruction on very original lines of the simple yet beautiful story of David, King of Israel, “the greats warrior, the greatest lover, the greatest poet the world has ever known.” In Sir Gilbert Parker’s pages the “sweet singer of Israel,” appears as no semi-mythical character, but as a real man of flesh and blood, swayed by human passions and Divine Impulses. Much as, speaking generally, “Liber” dislikes the idea of presenting Biblical personages in fictional form, he must recognise the lofty thoughts and tremendous industry displayed by Sir Gilbert Parker In a story so far removed from his ordinary choice of subject. Some Hutchinson Fiction.

At this season of the year pressure on our space is more than usually heavy, and little more than the briefest mention can be made of the small deluge of current fiction. From Messrs. Hutchinson we have to acknowledge receipt of “Eddy and Edouard,” by Baroness Von Hutten, a study of conflicting influences upon a young American “related through his mother to half the nobility of France.” Mr. David Calder Wilson’s “The Golden Emperor” is concerned with the growth into importance, the business and personal rivalries, the sentimental interests, even the tragedies which have to be chronicled in connection with Stetson’s Mammoth Store. One is reminded here of how Zola treated much the same motif —although in his own, purely Gallic way—in his “Ladies’ Paradise.” “Rita’s Prince Errant” is the first of a number of readable stories, her title story dealing, in her own bright way, with the marriage of the German Prince Friedrich of Stenstein to the daughter of his English governess of childhood'days. “Through the Lattice,” by Evelyn Close, is the poignant drama of a North Country village, with “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord,” as the dominant motif. A very stirring story. Horace Rose’s “Love Tells the World” is an historical novel of love and adventure on the coast of Africa, ending happily in that Portugal whence come the hero and heroine long absent ’neath the tropic sun. “Red Poppies,” by Emmeline Morrison, is the thrilling story of a beautiful young dancer, half English, half German, who is torn during the War between her oath of allegiance to Germany and her loyalty to the country of her lover and father, now a British colonel.

“The Middle Ages,” by Richmal Crompton, is a series of well-written short stories by the well-known author of “The Monstrous Regiment.” Coningsby Dawson’s “Pilgrims of the Impossible,” is the study of a girl and two men, and their conflicting feelings and of the story trick that fate plays them. This is a quite excellent novel, to which I hope when space allows to return in detail. Edward Elton’s “She Drew the Bolt” (Hutchinson and Co.), is a welltold story of the revolt of a wealthy eldest son against the selfishness of his parastlcal relatives. Incidentally it is a telling study of present-day society, its follies and vices. M. E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell) well maintains her reputation as a writer of very readable fiction in her new story, “The Evolution of Aenone” (Hutchinson), the heroine of which evolves from a fiery young Welsh peasant girl into a beautiful and gifted woman whose life is full of often vividly sensational experiences. An Unusual Detective. Writers of what are generally known as “detectives” are nowadays so prodigal in their supply of the sensational that it is difficult to say when the limit to their imaginative power has been reached. In his novel, “The Gang Smasher” (Hutchinson and Co.), Hugh Clevelly has surely gone near exhausting it a demobbed war hero, John Martinson. devoting himself to the dual task of winning the affections of a very charming girl, and breaking up a gang of scoundrels headed by one Tortoni, whose identity the police are long unable to discover, and whose crimes and those of his many satellites whose crimes are the result of his evil-work-ing brain, defy all their efforts at detection until the "Gang Smasher” takes a hand. The reader who would fain sup on imaginary horrors is hereby commended to spend an evening with Mr. Clevelly’s creations.

Sundry Stories. In his “Two Innocents on a Natal Farm” (Herbert Jenkins), Mr. Walter Hewetson provides one of the most unfailingly humorous stories of South African life that we have bad of,

cent years. Evangelina, one of the “Innocents," is a decidedly entertaining character, with whom we hope to meet again. “Lions in the Way,” by Hughes Mearns (Hurst and Blackett), is a brightly written story of a young lady who wants to make her way on the stage. Both she and her rather vulgar but warm-hearted mother, “Petticoat Maggie,” a star of the vaudeville stage, are well drawn characters. Rldgwell Cullum, the author of "The Mystery of the Barren Lands” (Cassell), generally has a good yarn to tell and tells it well. He is a born storyteller and although campaigns against the drug traffic are somewhat “vieux jeu” for a novelist to tackle, Mr. Cullum’s novel, descriptive of the adventures of a girl anxious to penetrate a mystery of her father’s unhappy death, adventures taking her and her uncle to a little known part of the Canadian Far North, is the work of a skilled fictional craftsman.

“Peter and Veronica,” by Margaret Beech (Herbert Jenkins), is a very pleasantly told story for young people, comprising a series of spring-time lessons in an old garden and setting forth, in an agreeably worded story, the laws of fatherhood and motherhood. The author recommends the book for reading aloud by mothers, but children of say, eight or nine, might well be left to read it themselves. Simply, but effectively illustrated. (3s. 6d.)

Give a man a pipe he can smoke, Give a man a book he can read: And his home is bright with a calm delight Though the room be poor indeed.

—James Thomson.