BOOKS and AUTHORS

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 45, 16 November 1929, Page 32

BOOKS and AUTHORS

A Weekly Survey .•>

By

“Liber”

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.

BOOKS OF THE DAY A New Book of Lucasian Essays. I confess that I never tire of a new collection of essays by Mr. E. V. Lucas, although most of them I have read as they appeared either in “Punch” or the London “Sunday Tinies.” Mr. Lucas is always such a happily companionable writer. He will take you a brief journey round England’s countryside, or maybe across the Channel, and discuss the difference 'twist the' Continental and the British Sunday; he will pull down an old favourite from the bookshelves and extract therefrom fresh entertainment' —always is he bright and informative, never too much so, and always what he writes has a fine topical flavour. Here, once again, in his “Turning Things Over: Essays and Fantasies” (Methuen and Co.), he is to the fore, as is his wont at this season of the year, with a collections of articles reprinted from the journals to -which he has contributed throughout the year, and always, although the subject be slight enough, he has something very agreeable and readable to say. I

know a Lucas devotee who makes a practice of giving a Lucas book away as a Christmas present every year. Such a gift is always welcome. Short Studies in Shakespeare.

Professor G. F. Bradby, the author of “Short Studies in Shakespeare” (John Murray), does not present his short excursions into Shakespearean criticism as being in any way exhaustive. They are written from the point of view of a critic who thinks it no service to Shakespeare to find in anything and everything he wrote the consummate expression of consummate art. Shakespeare could, as Professor Bradby shows, be careless, and therefore human, at times, and the critic’s analysis of “Hamlet,” in particular, should give rise to much useful thought. To admit frankly that, though “Hamlet” be the greatest of plays, it is not, what it is so often called, a perfect work of art, is not necessarily to belittle Shakespeare. If we forget the jarring notes—and it is much easier to forget than to remember —there must remain, so Professor Bradby writes, “a central figure of surpassing genius aiid interest which has gripped the imagination of the learned and unlearned of all ages.”' (Bs.) Some New Everyman Volumes.

Messrs. Dent’s excellent “Everyn;an” Library bids fair to, approach its tenth century. A recently added batch of five volumes includes some very attractive titles. One of the best of Anthony Trollope’s political series, a worthy pendant to the Bursetshire series, is “Phineas Finn,” with hn introduction by that latter-day Trollope, Mr. Hugh Walpole. A volume of Essays by Leigh Hunt, of late advancing markedly in popularity, will be very welcome, and two French work's which have long been favourites with the book-lovers, "Manon Leseaut,” by the Abbe Prevost, and Prosper Merimee’s “Carmen.” are sure of a big public. A sociological work of some historical interest is John Howard’s “Prisons in England and Wales, 1777,” with an introduction by Kenneth Riack.

LIBER'S NOTE BOOK

I am glad to see, by au article in “John o’ London’s Weekly,” that Mr. Wilfred Whitten agrees with me that Arnold Bennett “goes too far” in his theorising about literary classics, belittling Dickens and Sterne, and laying down the dangerous principle that because one may,not like this, that, or the other author, they are necessarily not to be ranked as classics. As Mr. Whitten says. “It may not bo bis fault that we cannot enjoy what the best minds still enjoy, but it is certainly his misfortune.”

Personally, I fail to appreciate many of the great Russians—“ The Brothers Karamazoff,” for example—over which Mr. Arnold Bennett is never tired of raving as a masterpiece. But because, personally, I cannot like Dostoevsky, I am not so foolish to deny him the rank of classicist.

I read that James Joyce, of “Ulysses” fame, is now living in England, at Torquay. A curious change this from the “Boule Miche” to the ultra-conventional Devonsh ire wa te ring-pl ace. To Constable’s Miscellany (Constable, 4s. fid.) has been added a volume, "The Icknielld Way,” by the late Edward Thomas.

Compton Mackenzie’s new book on “Gallipoli” (Cassell) will be half fiction, half history. The novelist put in two or three years in the Levant working for the British Secret Service. Lady Margaret Sackville has written ably-arranged prefaces to the four volumes of the Holyrood edition of that almost forgotten novelist. Susan Terrier, “Marriage,” “Inheritance,” and a solums of Memoirs

and Letters. Eveleigh, Nash and Grayson publish the set at £6 6s. —surely too heavy a price. Dent’s, if I remember rightly, published a set at less than ss. each.

Duckworths announce for forthcoming publication a new novel by Osbert Sitwell, “The Man Who Lost Himself,” and a new volume of poems, “These Sad Ruins,” the second volume of the Gothic Trilogy, by Saccheverell Sitwell. An omnibus book which ought to have an enormous sale is promised by Duckworth and Co., to which enterprising firm of publishers we book-lovers owe so many good things. This is a complete edition, in one volume, of John Galsworthy’s plays, to contain the whole of his efforts as a playwright. First editions of “Captives” bring over £l5O, but we shall get the whole Duckworth volume for half a guinea or less. A marvel of cheapness. Two “omnibus books,” which to me appear to be astonishingly good value, are published by Hodder and Stoughton. These are a volume of four Sapper Drummond stories, “Bull - Dog Drummond,” “The Black Gang,” “The Third Round,” and “The Final Count,” and a volume containing no fewer than

thirty-seven of the “cases” of “Dr. Thorndyke, the Ace of Detectives,” as presented by Mr. R. Austin Freeman. With either of these two volumes there should be no tedium on a long railway journey. SOME RECENT FICTION By Anthony Gibbs. Mr. Anthony Gibbs, clever member of a clever family, has given us several very readable novels, but in his “Young Apollo” '(Hutchinson), neither his hero nor heroine shows much commonsense in their joint aspect upon life. Jane is just a trifle 01) the hard side, and her husband’s somewhat too facile submission to the fascinations of Isobel d’Aunay, a “vamp” almost as fantastic as her name, whilst his wife is at Cambridge, is scarcely surprising. The hero becomes alive to the attractions of his wife when it is too late, for she dies in childbed. The undergraduate life at Oxford, is, however, very well described. Abbot’s End. “Abbot’s End” by Rachel Crompton (Hodder and .Stoughton) is another rather disappointing story, turning on the problem before three grown-up sisters, who fail to realise the difference between altered social conditions and the influence of new neighbours upon family life. The character drawing, however, is decidedly good. Arsene Lupin Kedivivus.

Arsene Lupin continues to crop up as a chief figure in a Maurice Leblanc “detective,” as surely as Sherlock Holmes was wont to do in a Conan Doyle yarn. But as we meet him in Maurice Leblanc’s “Milamare Mystery” (Mills and Boon), he is almost ap unrecognisable figure. There is a sensational theft of a diamond corselet at an opera mannequin parade, which is well enough managed, but after all the English concoctor of detective yarns can do the sort of thing just as well—and better. The First and the Last of Conrad. Messrs. Benn have placed booklovers, more especially those who appreciate Conrad, under a debt of gratitude by the issue, in one well-printed volume, “The First and the Last of Conrad,” of four of the most striking of the stories by which the Anglo-Polish novelist made his name with English readers. This four are “Almayer's Folly,” “The Outcast of . the Islands,’’ “The Arrow of Gold.” and “The Rover.” The. four stories comprise a perfect treasure house of literary joy, imagination. and adventure, and T venture to prediet that readers of lhese splendid tales will lose no time in making themselves familiar with the tout Conrad, with all the wealth of literary delight which that spells. A Follower of Napoleon.

Adam Konski, the young Pole, who is the central figure in Vai ’ Gielgud’s “Black Gallantry” (Constable and Co.) is a likable as well as a lifelike figure, who regarding Napoleon as a born Liberator of Poland, joins the French in the Russian campaign. With three other Poles, he is employed as a spy, mid has to encounter the subtly clever opposition of a beautiful and determined woman called “The Spider.” Konski has a series of lurid adventures, in burning Moscow, with .the rearguard under Ney, at the crossing of the Dnieper and on the blood-stained bridge of the Beresina. Indeed the whole of the figures in this well told historical novel are full of life. Mr. Fulton Oursler, the author of “The World’s Delight,” has been interviewed by a representative of the New York “Evening Post.” “The World’s Delight” is described as a “fictionised biography” of Adah Isaacs ilenken, whose real name was Dolores Adios McCoflJ. a ,ci?cus lidos, unde? s>hosa

spell Swinburne fell. (He afterwards called hyr the ••beautiful passionate body that never has ached with a heart.”). Most of Mr. Oursler’s original material, he told the interviewer, came from the library of Harry Houdini. Mrs. Oursler bought it at. a private sale. The manuscript of “Resurgam,” Menken’s most famous poem, is Mr. Oursler’s prized possession. “Menken’s tragedy was that she was not. great enough to make the grade as a poet,” explained her biographer. “This was true of Dumas, too, who was her lover. There is no writer I enjoy more than. Dumas, but he just missed being great. He knew it of himself, and she knew it of herself. All through her short and colourful life, for she died at 33, she was seeking to be something she could hot be. From circus rider to actress, who once played Macbeth, from actress to friend of Dickens, Dumas and Swinburne, she still longed to write, great poetry. Rossetti did once call her a genius.” Mr. Oursler traces Adah Menken’s life from her beginning as a circus rider (when she had her first love affair with an admittedly fictitious character, “Buddy”) to her death and burial in Paris. He records her marriages: first, with the Jewish teacher of singing, whose religion she accepted, and whose name she adopted; then, with John C. Heenan, the prize-fighter; then with Robert T. Newell, a journalist, who wrote humorous books under the pen-name of Orpheus C. Kerr; and finally with Jim Barkley, millionaire gambler, who built her “Bleak House” in the heart of New York, and blew his brains out two mouths later. He touches upon.-her associations with Swinburne, her fight with Dumas pere, and her strange mental loyalty to the clown she had loved when she was 17, who had deserted and hurt her beyond comfort. He mentions that Adah was one of the first women to wear a boyish “bob.” The Latest Locke. .

Mr. Locke, to whom we owe so much good reading, has, for the nonce, deserted his much-favoured Riviera and takes his readers on a trip to Trinidad, of which he gives, in “Ancestor Jorico” (John Lane), a very lively description. His characters, several of them descendants of Jorico, an eighteenth century adventurer, who is supposed to have secretly buried a vast treasure in Trinidad sail for that island on a palatial yacht, being taken into adventures into which he is driven by the Bolshevik upheaval, takes a position as cook to a wealthy rastouquere’s household at Fontecreuse, Ivan Molinoff is no fool, and assuredly liked by many—mostly ladies—who frequent the establishment. His experiences in a French country house, whose inmates are mostly Royalists and supporters of “’L’Action Francaise,” are scarcely if the truth must be said, as varied and amusing as were the Scandinavian amourettes of “Jerome,” but they make very good reading, and when Molinoff goes off to Pau we wish him every luck thither by a jolly and generous widow, an elderly general acting as general guide. With him goes Major Toby Boyle, head of the dress designing business —which he dislikes most heartily—Palmyre, and a soldier servant—with whom he can only converse in signs and pictures—and Ruth a lady s maid who, it turns out, is his first cousin, and by whom the disposal of the . Jorico treasure, found, not in the Cave des Diabolins, but in the cellars of a London bank, is ultimately. One of the most engaging figures is “Benkie,” as that elderly naval baronet is called by his relative, fo? it was owing very largely to his unearthing of the Jorico cyphers. The yacht comes to sad grief, for it meets with a mishap which kills the jolly Ladv Jane, who has lent it to the trea-sure-hunters, but the dialogue throughout is characteristically Lockian, and the whole story, right up to the unexpected denouement, hands well together, and most fascinatingly readable. Mr. Locke -gives us some very pic-' turesque local colour, indeed, after reading his story, the tourists to Trinidad should sensibly increase in number. Novels Received.

From T. Werner Laurie, “Electric Love,” an impelling new full-length by “Victoria Cross,” said to be her best story since the notorious “Anna Lombard.” The scene is mainly in Hungary, the author likening the “true loves of her hero apd heroine to electric currents when, when united result in a great flame of love.” From Constable and Co., “The Frantic Young Man,” by Charles Samuels, is mainly a story of journalistic life in New York, of which, and its sexual side, it does not give a very alluring picture. From Cassell and Co., “Time is a Gentleman,” by Charles Thomson. A fine story of the Philippines, whither goes Mackenzie Duell, with the object of clearing his dead father’s good name and working the estate which had been derelict so long. But he proves a good fighter, and in due course his enemy is overthrown and Feliza, the elusive, is won.

From Mills and Boon. “Plain Sailing,” by “A. Gentleman with a Duster.” A fine story by the author of “The Laslett Affair.” “Plain Sailing” is a story of the present dfiy. combining delicacy with cheerfulness, and raising a question of considerable interest. Proves that the common idea—expressed in so much latter day fiction—that love is but another word for lust, is a grievous mistake. The publishers “confidently recommend this work to readers who are sick of obscenity and blasphemy in fiction, and who appreciate beauty, strength, and wit.” From the Melbourne University Press (per Macmillan and Co.. Melbourne), we Jiave received a copy of “Studies in Australian Affairs.” issued by the New South Wales branch of the Institute of Pacific Relations, and contributed to by several leading professors. Edited by Persia Campbell, R. C. Mills, and G. V. Porter, the book contains much useful recent information about affairs in a country both fruitful in industrial and political experiments. “Green Envelopes.”

“Green Envelopes” (John Murray) is a collection of letters sent, to a typical English village from the front by citizens who went to the war with the local Yeomanry. These included the popular squire, M.F.H., the local curate, a groom, a gardeher, a farmer, a schoolmaster, a huntsman,.who became padre, company officers, troopers, etc. A kind friend has collected the letters sent by these many varying types to their native village. They give a good idea of the many-sided impressions of the war, and are most readable.