BOOKS and AUTHORS

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 92, 12 January 1929, Page 27

BOOKS and AUTHORS

A Weekly Survey

By

“Liber”

BOOKS OF THE DAY My Two African Journeys. In his book, “My Two African Journeys” (Methuen and Co.), Mr. Frank Gray, late M.P. for Oxford City, gives a' very pleasantly written and usefully informative description of two visits, partly made in the interests of a big English firm of motor-car builders, to Africa. In the course of his earlier journey Mr. Gray visited Southern and Northern Nigeria, French Dahomey, Togoland, and the Gold Coast, afterwards proceeding to the Black Republic of Liberia and Sierra Leone. Everywhere he writes himself down as a shrewdly observant traveller, being by no means lacking in frankness as a discerning and outspoken critic of political and commercial affairs. In his second journey he landed at Lagos, thence crossing Nigeria by car and through French Equatorial Africa, and the British Sudan, from El Obeid to the frontier, finally reaching Eritrea by the same means, closing his tour at Massawa on the Red Sea. Of all the immense area crossed Mr. Gray provides an exceedingly readable and instructive account and he certainly must have returned to England a much better informed man as to Imperial overseas conditions of British administration and blessing the day, when in 1924, he had the then bad luck to be unseated on petition and was thus afforded the leisure granted by his absence from the many trials of an M.P. This is an exceptionally good book of travel, an especially interesting feature of which is provided in its wealth of well produced illustrations. (195.). i The Age of the Gods.

A vast amount of researcirand painstaking examination of evidence is iomprised in Mr. Christopher Dawson’s “The Age of the Gods, a study in the origins of culture in prehistoric Europe and the aniient East”, (London, John ’Murray). Mr. Dawson, who points out that during the last thirty years the great development of archeological and ethnological studies has prepared the way for a new conception of history, commences by chapters on the glacial age and the beginnings of human life in Europe, proceeding thence through later “palaeolithic culture and the religion of the hunter,” to the dawn of the neololithic age and the •rise of peasant life in Europe. He then examines in turn the origins of the higher civilisation in Asia,-the rise of the “city state,” and the development of institutions in Egypt, Crete, and the Aegean. Megalithic culture in Spain and Western Europe is then dealt with, Nordic culture, and the origins of -the warrior peoples in Europe following. The “Age of Empire in the Near East, Egypt, Asia Minor, and Syria,” “The Bronze Age in Central Europe,” “The Mycenaean Culture of Greece,” and the “Age of the Invasions,” are then reviewed, the final chapter being devoted to the higher culture of the Venetians and Etruscans. A series of useful maps is included, and a few reproductions are given from illustrations of pottery ■and stone instruments in the British Museum. (275.) “A History of Great Britain.”

The leading Idea set forth in “A History of Great Britain,” by Howard Robinson, Ph.D., edited by J. T. Shotwell, Ph.D. (George Allen and Unwin), is based upon Wordsworth’s lines, “To see imparts, as parts, but with a feeling of the whole.” It is no small feat to compress the leading events of British history since the earliest times to the present day into a narrative of over 900 pages, yet such has been Dr. Robinson’s objective, and it is remarkable how much he has got in and how little of great importance he has left out. It is more than a history of Great Britain that he has written. It is a history of the Eng-lish-speaking peoples, for overseas expansion has pushed the range of British influence to the furthest corners of the world. The book is brought well up to date, and in a closing paragraph the author pays a fine tribute to the British Empire and its peoples, who, in spite of the disillusion of the post-war years, “face the winds of change with their customary combativeness, tenacity and adaptability.” A specially and admirably useful feature of the book is the large number of maps. The provision of a full index is also to be noted. (235.)

The Story of Henry Ford. “Henry Ford, the Man, the Worker, the Citizen,” is the title of a biographical tribute to one of the best-known men in the world, by Roulhac Hamilton (George Allen and Unwin). Mr. Hamilton has retold the wonderful life story of one of the world’s greatest inventors and mechanicians, setting forth in plain but sufficiently eloquent language the story of Ford’s rise to fame, and showing how the boys distaste for farm drudgery - and his dislike of waste fostered the development of the man’s inventive genius, which has had such world-wide results, lhe illustrations mark the progress or Ford’s marvellous powers of mechanical genius and his striking capacity for industrial co-operation and commercial organisation. (10s.) Builders of Australia. Messrs. J. M. Dent and Sons have issued in Mr. Arthur Joses Builders and Pioneers of Australia; a wellauthenticated book on the history and geography of the Australian Commonwealth. Than Mr. Jose, the skilful editor of the two Australian volumes supplementary to the latest edition of “Chambers' Encyclopedia” and an admitted authority on Australian history, no more efficient compiler of a work ot this kind could have been found. He provides well-written biographies in brief of Macquarie, Wentworth, Parkes and Deakin, whom he classes as the leading builders of that Commonwealth of'which all Australians are so justly proud, and under the heading of “Pioneers” he gives equally telling sketches and character portraits of Jan Carstenszoon, explorer; John and Gregory Blaxland, farmers and explorers; Simeon Lord, merchant and manufacturer; Francis Howard Greenway, architect; George Howe, printer and journalist; William Hilton Hovell, explorer; and James King, inventor and viticulturist. Some of these latter are not so well known to public fame as they might be, and it is good to see that here, at least, their energy and enterprise should be recorded in detail. There are four very useful maps and an excellent index. (7s. 6d.).

Prose of the Day. A companion to that excellent little book, “Poems of the Day,” is “Prose of the Day” (Longmans), which, like its predecessor, has been produced under the auspices of the English Association, and claims to be the most representative selection of English prose by modern writers hitherto published. It is a charming little anthology in which it is good to find many old Jayeuxites irom ffriteis S.Q yaJCifißS

Conrad, Belloc, Chesterton, Tomlinson, Max Beerbohm, Katherine Mansfield, Kenneth Grahame, A. A. Milne, and hosts of others who have been much before the eye of an appreciative public during the last few years. Leatherwork.

The finely artistic craft of leatherwork is dealt with authoritatively and very fully and pleasantly in a handsome volume entitled “The Art and Craft of Leatherwork,” by Cecile Francis-Lewis (Seeley, Service and Co.). The author, who conducts the Francis-Lewis Studio of Arts and Crafts, here provides a detailed and practical guide to the tooling, modelling, carving and other means of decorating leather to the making and covering of articles in that material; with instructions on cleaning, staining, colouring and gilding, etc. The author, who claims that craftwork is, in these restless days of ours, a necessity, to act as a sedative, providing at the same time congenial occupation and relaxation, has written her book with the threefold purpose of teaching and helping the amateur who has no opportunity of taking lessons in another way; of giving teachers a basis upon which to build up their lessons; and of giving those who are ambitious and do not grudge time or trouble the opportunity of executing the more advanced kinds of leatherwork. Every variety of leatherwork is included in the instructions given, the illustrations, some in colour, numbering no fever than 164, and covering every kind of material and tools, as well as exemplifying Variety or design. For all jvho are interested in this most delightful of artistic crafts, Miss Francis-Lewis’s book may be regarded as a quite cyclopaedic work. (13s. 6d.) Laughter. Dr. C. W. Kimmins, author of “The Springs of Laughter” (Methuen and Co.), is the author of several books on child psychology. He has now added to his several essays on child study a decidedly novel and interesting work on the origins and development of the humorous sense in young people, dealing, in succesive chapters, with the theories of laughter, laughter and dreams, laughter and tears, with the spirit of the child, the beginnings of laughter, the laughter of young and older children, and with the differences of English and American humour, closing with a specially excellent little article on the laughter of coloured children. (Bs.) - e LIBER’S NOTE-BOOK “Ephesian’s” (C. Bechofer Roberts’) biographical novel, “This Side Idolatory,” which has given such offence to Dickensians, and has been almost universally held to be. an example of execrably bad taste in literary history, has been banned from the public libraries of Portsmouth, Dickens’s birthplace. A Melbourne author, J. M. has found an unexpected public for ins sensational fiction m a Buda-Pesth publishing firm, which has brought the translation rights of three of ; h works, The Images of Han, ine White Mask,” and “The Purple Stain. On October 28 last Mrs. Kate Perugini, the only surviving daughter of Charles Dickens, celebrated hei 89th birthday. She lives in retirement in South Kensington, not far fiom hei brother, Sir Henry Fielding Dickens, K.C., who is now 82. Kate Dickens was, in her younger days, a painter of portraits and frequently exhibited at the Royal Academy. Her first husband was Charles Allston Collins, brother of the novelist, Wilkie Collins, and himself an artist and author ( A Cruise Upon Wheels”). He died in 1873. Her second husband, C. E. Perugini, was also an aartist. When, she was 10, Kate Dickens, with her sister Mary (“Mamie”), taught her father to dance the polka in honour of a birthday. When the lesson was over, Dickens gravely enjoined John Forster, who was present, to “remember that for my biography”—which Forster did. The portrait of Mrs. Perugini, given herewith, was taken some years ago. Two well-known English writers, though in very different styles, passed away in October, though the cable man, as usual when deaths occur in the world of literature, neglected to inform us of them. Mr. Festing Jones, who died at the advanced age of seventy-seven, was for many years the intimate friend of Butler, of “Erewhon” fame. He was a .musical composer in a minor way, practising law at first, but afterwards devoting himself to musical composition and to his devotion to his friend Butler. He will be best remembered by his biography of Butler, a long, and in places rather dreary, work in two volumes, in which were set down in great detail the main features of Butler’s life. When it first came out it had a big vogue in literary circles, but you can buy a copy at a much reduced rate nowadays. Festing Jones was, as was Butler, very fond of travelling in Italy and Sicily, and wrote two books on Sicily which are decidedly readable. Another death was that of Mr. Bohun Lynch, at 44, who wrote two capital novels, “Respectability” and “Glamour,” and an excellent book on “Boxing,” on which, when at Oxford, he was admittedly a great authority. He had also a very pretty taste in caricature upon which he wrote the article in the “Encyclopaedia Britannica.” His book on Max Beerbohm and his work is very readable, and has some excellent sketches of modern comic artists. Powys Evans has a good portrait of him in the November London “Mercury.” The “London Mercury” has a warm-ly-written defence of the English Poet Laureate, Mr. Robert Bridges, against whom Mr. James Douglas, an Iflnglish journalist who has earned an unenviable notoriety by would-be satirical attacks upon well-known people, had produced what the “Mercury”, styled a “silly and vulgar” article in the “Daily Express.” Mr. Bridges is now eighty-four, and the fact that he seldom writes a new poem moved Mr. Douglas to head his article “The King’s Canary Still Refuses to Twitter.” Mr. Douglas, with very questionable taste, made quite a ferocious attack upon the old gentleman, proceeding to say that “Mr. Bridges has filled or emptied the office of Poet Laureate for fifteen years.” He is, says this learned commentator, “A barnacle whose tenacity is equalled only by his taciturnity,” and says many other very rude things under apparently the idea that they are smart. . The “LomiQU ALfiEfiULV

quotes an article: “It Culture Worth While?” appearing in another column of the “Express,” in which occurs the line, “constant disparagement is the surest sign of a stunted mental growth,” and states that “as a condemnation of the ignorance and pettiness, the quite beastly ignorance and pettiness displayed by Mr. Douglas on the same page it is adequate.” As a matter of fact it is, I hold, an open question whether the office of Poet Laureate should continue to exist nowadays, but Douglas’s attack upon the present holder of the office is in the worst possible taste. The “Mercury’s” denunciation of Douglas Is about the warmest bit of writing I can remember. Douglas appears to have had "a set” upon Dr. Bridges from the time of his first appointment, when this champion of the Muses wrote, so the “Mercury” points out, “a protesting leader headed ‘What are Bridges?’, ‘not realising,’ as the “Mercury” says,that ‘posterity’s guffaws would be on the other side.”

In Mr. Squires’s view, and he is a much better authority on poetry than ever this penny-a-liner “smarty of the “new journalism” could ever be accounted, “there is no poet in England, not excluding Wordsworth and Tennyson, who has excelled Mr. Bridges as an observer and precise portrayer of Englgish landscape in all its features, changes, seasons.” The “Mercury’s” defence, if such were really necessary, which I doubt, of the Poet Laureate, covers four or five pages, and should not be missed by those who love and really appreciate English poetry.

SOME RECENT FICTION Mrs. Steele’s Indian Stories. No English writer has probably written more detailed and accurate studies of modern history than has Mrs. Flora Annie Steele, the veteran author of “King Errant,” a cheap edition of which (4/6) is now published by Mr. John Murray. “King Errant,” first published in 1912, was the first of Mrs. Steele’s great romances dealing with the four great Mogul Emperors of the Indies. In this book the central character is “Babar, the Knight Errant.” In the second novel, “A Prince of Dreamers,” we are shown Akbar, the Great Dreamer in “Mistress of Men.” Mrs. Steele introduces Jahangir, the Compleat Lover, and in the fourth volume appears the famous Emperor Shahjahan, the Magnificent. All four books may fairly be regarded as classics of Indian story. Red Altars.

“Red Altars,” by J. G. Brandon (Cassell), deals with the exposure and punishment of a mysterious society, which guarantees upon payment of a large sum, the “removal” by assassination, of eminent people. An English detective, with the long unsuspected assistance of an Italian “crime investigator,” specially skilful in disguises, at last solves the mystery, and releases a Russian princess from the toils of the gang. Soho is largely the background of the story, which, though luridly sensational, goes with a good swing throughout.

The Crime and the Confessor. Horace G. Hutchinson’s “The Crime and the Confessor” (John Murray), relates the killing of a scoundrelly blackmailer by a South Americap lady, the victim’s English cousin being at first strongly suspected. The story is told by an Anglican clergyman, who has to deal with the problem as to whether the secrecy of the confessionnl should not be violated when it means preventing disaster to a fine, self-sacrificing character.

The Window. Alice Grant Rosman’s “The Window” (Mills and Boon), is a well-told story. Christopher Royle, the hero, is entrusted by a dying friend in South Africa with the delivery of a package of diamonds. Unfortunately the friend dies before he has fully explained the manner of disposal, Royle’s task being rendered more difficult by the fact that the dead man’s real name was not that by which he was known in South Africa. The hero goes through some curious experience, the author having a distinct talent for humorous character drawing.

Beginner’s Luck. As a mixture of low comedy and melodrama, C. R. Benstead’s Beginner’s Luck’ ’(Chapman and Hall), is a clever enough concoction, and it seems a pity that the latter pages should be so palpably stagey, for as a farcical figure, Mr. Samuel Pottlebury Brown, called upon to assume the character of a private detetive, and to relinquish temporarily his ordinary calling as a draper’s shop walker, would have been an admirable part for, say, the late Mr. Toole, or similar comedian to assume. The Duke of Wedderburn and his wife and their daughter who gives Brown’s son the glad eye; so willingly, all belong to the region of farcical romance. But Gambles, alias the Bolshevik Stolow, and his fellow conspirators, are frankly quite conventional and puppet-like creations.

Some Nelson Reprints. Messrs. Nelson and Sons have a deservedly high reputation for the high standard of their numerous series of reprints of popular fiction. Recent accessions to their halfcrown library are “The Black Bag,” by Louis Vance; “The Grey Knight,” by Mrs. Henryde la Pasture (now Lady Swettenham); “Arethusa,” by F. Marion Crawford; “Franklin Kane,” by Anne Douglas Sedgwick; and “Rules of the Game,” by Stewart E. White. To their three and sixpenny library have been added three stories, which, when first published, at once attained popularity, “Forth, Smuggler,’ by Edmund Vale; “A Baltic Mystery, by F. Sidney Webber; and “The Scarlet Mask,” by Charles Rodda, the lastnamed a vigorously told romance of Australian bushranging.

From John Long. Three novels come from Mr. John Long. In one, “Jeanne,” by Theda Kenyon, historical facts and latterday fiction are cunningly combined in the life of the famous Maid of Orleans. In “The Hollow Tree,” by Peter Brook, an ex-officer, Seymour Trefusis, finds salvation amidst new and exotic surroundings, assisted by a very charming heroine. Mrs. Amy J. Baker’s “Aurora” is a pleasantlytold tale of an Englishwoman’s varied experiences, largely in the Riviera and other Continental pleasure resorts, concluding by her marriage in Florence to an Anglo-Indian Swiss. Mr. Charles Mansford’s “She gink

Carnation” (John Long) is a fascinating historical romance of the French Revolution, the interest centring in Heloise and her father, the Due D'Orleans; Robespierre and his mistress Eleonora; and Thomas Paine, the American republican who became a naturalised Frenchman.

thrilling story “Dick Valiant at the Dardanelles” (Seeley, Service and Co.), is a thrilling story of a young midshipman’s adventurous experience at Gallipoli, and in the Eastern Mediterranean generally, from the pen of one who has already many such records of British gallantry and adventurous exploits to his credit. The illustrations in colour are particularly striking and well produced. (75.)

Give a man cl 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. —Janies Thomson.