BOOKS and AUTHORS

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 221, 14 June 1930, Page 28

BOOKS and AUTHORS

A Weekly Survey *2? *2? By

Liber”

BOOKS OF THE DAY “A Brass Hat in No Man’s Land.” This book on publication in England caused an outburst of indignation and protest. That is not surprising for it is another of “those” war books. Coming from a British general who claims long descent from the fighting families of the Crozlers and Percys, and including Hotspur in his pedigree, the book is the more painfully surprising. That such a man should “tell tales out of school” (and such tales) is extraordinary and inexplicable, although the author, General Crozier, declares his purpose is to show up war for the horrible thing it is. For the sake of relatives and friends who must still be living in Ulster, it is hoped that the blabbing general has concealed under fictional names some of the officers and men of whom he writes. Otherwise these people must be outraged a dozen years and more after the event It will be bad enough to read again in these pages how the flower of Ulster's, manhood was withered in death before an impregnable position at the left of the Somme battle on July 1, 1916; but far worse to be told of cases of cow’ardice, alcoholism and of social diseases.

ed" by Fascist spies to tbeir capture and deportation, the harrowing description of life on the penal island where men—often men of education

The account in some detail of the execution of a private (it is hoped his real name is not given) is set forth in stark horror. The man has been allowed to drink himself insensible and cannot stand. “As he is produced,” writes General Crozier, “I see he is practically lifeless and quite unconscious. He has already been bound with ropes. There are hooks on the post; we always do things thoroughly in the Rifles. He is hooked on like dead meat in a butcher’s shop." So the account goes until the victim, not killed by the firing party’s volley, receives his quietus from a subaltern’s revolver. And all this while the battalion stands at attention within ten yards of the scene, within hearing, if not sight of, a comrade’s execution. No protest can be too strong at this sort of muck-raking, and even the extreme pacificist must reflect that some .rank and violent writing is being done in the name of the cause of peace. Our copy from Jonathan Cape. (7/6.)

Postscript to Adventure. ■ Mr. Ashley Gibson, the author of “Postscript to Adventure” (J. W. Dent and Sons), has written very readable books on Malaya and Ceylon for the Outward, Bound Library. Ini his new book he strikes out into a new line, presenting the story of his youthful adventures In Edwardian journalism as a pageant of impressions. In his experiences in Fleet Street and Chelsea .he met many celebrities, of whom he gives short —too short—but eminently readable impressionistic sketches. Arthur Ransome, Edward Thomas, the poet-naturalist, J. D. Beresford, the novelist, George Adam, who has written such a good book on Paris, Galsworthy, who worshipped Dostoervsky at that time and was writing his since famous play, “The Silver Box”; De Vere Stacpoole, and a host of others were alt among his friends. Many men now prominent in the world of art were then among his associates— Gickert, Epstein, Augustus John, and others. But his journalistic friends were the most' favoured. T. P. O’Connor he did a lot of work for, feeding him with notes (mainly biographical) for his -“Book of the Week” article. On T.P.’s battered typewriter the wonderful Irishman ■ used to turn out a lt>t of copy, but T.P.’s handling of the machine produced the most weird results which only his secretary, Walker, cbuld decipher. “Half the letters transposed and no spaces between words, they looked like the gibberish the linotype operator impatiently taps off when he has made one ‘bloomer’ and wants a new line.” Mr. Gibson tells some good stories of a trip he was induced to make to Nigeria in company with one Moppett, a gold-seeking adventurer, but he soon found his way back to London again. He tells of John Masefield’s rise to fame, mainly the result of his poems in the “English Review.” Gibson was doing much work for the “Literary World” in those days, and tells the story of how Masefield sent two copies of “Nan" to that weekly.

and refinement—go mad, is from firsthand experience. The story of how Nitti and his friends duped the vigilance of their guards, and under the cover of a black Italian night, swam stealthily among a fleet of police boats, to a fast motor-boat, which rushed them to liberty on a foreign soil, is the account of fact which rivals the most exciting Action. The author is a nephew of the former Prime Minister Nitti, the famous Italian Liberal statesman, who refused to adopt the Fascist creed. Roselli and Lussu, his comrades in flight, are likewise men of distinction and culture. All are at present, like so many of their countrymen, refugees in hospitable France. Many of the statements niade as to Fascist tyranny by Nitti are well-nigh incredible. The treatment meted out to himself and other men whose sole offence—nothing against the law of their country—was their criticism and opposition to Fascist tyranny is revealed. i A special offender in this war against Liberalism was one Lieutenant Veronica, who seems to have been half a madman and who treated the unfortunate prisoners—there were over 500 prisoners, or deportees, when Nitti was in Lipari—with almost unbelievable cruelty. Signor Nitti’s book bears on almost every one of its pages evidence concerning the methods adopted by Mussolini to strengthen his rule and to stamp out all resistance to him. In an introduction the author’s uncle, Francesco Nitti, ex-Prlme Minister of Italy, says it has not been possible to give the names of those who assisted the nephew to escape because that would expose them and their families to atrocious persecutions. When any attempt is made against Fascism, abroad or in Italy, the Dictatorship tries not only to punish those responsible but their families as well. Fathers, brothers, sisters must answer for any anti-Fascist activity. So says ex-Prlme Minister Nitti. Probably he exaggerates a little, but undoubtedly such a book as this must sooner or later make its mark felt upon a country which produced Mazzini, Cavour, and Garibaldi. A number of illustrations, mainly of the grim island imprisonment, enhance the sensational character of the text (12/-.)

“Naturally,” he says, “I sold one to a Strand bookseller, and kept the other. I got one and ninepence for the one I sold. Five or six years ago I sent the other copy to Hodgson’s Sale rooms, and got pounds and pounds for it. It is probably now in America.” P. G. Wodehouse, Edgar Jepson, and E. V. Lucas he also met, with Hewlett, Bernard Cape and other Victorians, but his main work was art criticism! Gibson was in Fleet Street the day the news came of the Titanic disaster, and saw the crowd which dwelt uponevery word posted up at the Cockspur Street offices. Later on Gibson accepted a position in Ceylon—his book on which is so readable —and finally we arrive at the war. The war, during which Gibson, having taken the King’s shilling by becoming a full-blown private, furnishes some of the best written chapters in a very original book. Afterwards hh had a billet In the War Museum, but Ceylon made a second call, and apparently, for he does not say much about this experience, be went out there again. Portions of the book have appeared in the “English Review," the "Athenaeum,” and "The Clarion.” As a frontispiece is printed a drawing of the author by Mr. Frank Dobson; quite a good-looking fellow. (14/-.) Mussolini—The Other Side, Mussolini has recently again been largely in public discussion, he having delivered a bellicose and bombastic speech, palpably aimed at France, and sufficient to stamp the Italian autocrat as a danger to Europe. In “Escape,” by a man who went through hell in a Fascist island prison (Putnam and Sons), we are given a view of Fascism as viewed by Francesco Nltti, nephew of Francesco Nltti, ex-Prime Minister of Italy, now living in peace and security in Paris. The nCphew and two companions were the first men to succeed in escaping from the mysterious Fascist prison island of Lipari, in the Mediterranean, where hundreds of adversaries of Mussolini and Fascism languish in exile. They are the first to bring to a world barely aware of its existence, so ruthlessly has news of Fascism been suppressed, the complete story of the tyranny exercised by the Fascist Government over its political opponents. In this volume we have Netti’s own narrative of his adventures from th eday of his arrest in Rome to the night of his escape from Lipari on July 25, 1029. Nltti describes the “grupe vine spy tfystem” which the Fascist police have thrown out as a great net-work over Italy and its neighbours. Mis account of how political suspects arc treated —he himself became “an enemy to the State” simply because he took some flowers to the widow of Mateottl in her retirement—

An Orchid Hunter’s Adventures. Mr. F. D. Burdett the author of “The Odyssey of an Orchid Hunter” (Herbert Jenkins) was one of the first prospectors on the once famous,Kimberley goldfields in Western Australia. He has for some years been a leading pearler, explorer and orchid hunter. He now tells his experiences, including many most sensational adventures among the Igorote head-hunters of Borneo, the Negrito Pygmies, whose poisoned arrows are among the terrors of the forests of Luzon, in the Philippines, the Duzon python-hunters of the Borneo jungles, the corsairs and sultans of the Sulu Sea, and the Moro warriors of Mindanao. Mr. Burdett has seen many savage Islands, and met many native races whose habits and customs are distinctly curious. He writes easily and well, and' has not only a number of curious and exciting stories to tell, but tells them very well. He has for some years been engaged mainly in orchid-hunting, having found that there is much more money in it than in gold-prospecting ventures. When sent by an American speculator to hunt for deposits of magnesite in Northern Luzon, he was soon attracted by the large sums to be made by discovering and exporting orchids. His description of his lucky discovery of an enormous natural plantation of phaloenopsis in an island of the northern Philippines is very good. He had wonderful luck in his first venture before he changed from a gold seeker and pearl diver into an orchid hunter, and the story of his experiences in the latter capacity makes very good reading. Once he bad taken ffiOOO worth of gold out of the earth in less than nine days; on another Occasion lifting.pearls from the ocean bed to the value of £2OOO. His first “bag” as an orchid-hunter actually consisted of 47,000 plants—value not stated—and gold and pearjs have long ago been left undisturbed, the glamorous and profitable romance of orchid bunting has for some yeats Veen bis romantic employment. Mr. Burdett, says a friend wfio has edited these adventurous experiences, is “somewhere in the islands between the Pacific Ocean and the China Seas.” That his narrative has a scientific value is testified to by his being numbered among the many prominent anthropologists who contribute to “Man,” the journal of the Anthropological Society, but all these papers have their own value for the general reader who is fond of adventure. The illustrations, of which there is liberal provision, were taken in the jungles of Borneo and Luzon, and are most interesting. This is in many ways a very original and readable travel book. (24/-,)

LIBER’S NOTE-BOOK A Bundle of New “Everyman’s." “Everyman’s Library” . continues to grow so rapidly that Messrs. J. M. Dent and Sons should not have to wait very long for this remarkably cheap and useful series to reach the prediction of the originator, the late Mr. Dent, that it would soon reach the thousandth volume. In the new bundle are Included Smollett’s “Peregrine Pickle” (2 vols.), for which, honestly, I care less than for any other Smollett novel, for Peregrine himself is too much of a cad to be acceptable, and I much prefer its author’s “Humphrey Clinker.” Another old romance, “Moll Flanders,” is now generally regarded as one of Daniel Defoe’s best works, although for a time, its title page alone, warned oil many a reader whose tastes were Offended at its outspokenness. But George Burrow’s famous eulogy, spoken with small fear of offending Mrs. Grundy, by the old woman in “Lavengro,” is a classic of .appreciative criticism, and after all poor Moll was as much a victim of evil fate as a culprit, and the “Lavengro” passage will stand. Then there is Mr. Rigg’s fine translation of the Italian classic, “The Decameron,” with an introduction by Mr. Edward Hutton, whc has written so much and so well upon Italy. The present pack of additions to Everyman’s Library is specially rich in fiction, for it includes Poland’s great epic, “Pan Padensz,” by Mickiewicz, which George Braudes once styled the "only successful epic our century has produced,” and to which George Raspull Noyes bus written an eloquent and useful' biographical intro-

Give a man a pipe he can woke, 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.

“Shorter Novels of the Jacobean and Restoration Periods," which includes Aphra Behn’s “Oroonoko” and Congreve’s famous novel, “Incognita”; a volume, “Heimskrlngla, the Norse king Sagas," translated by - Samuel Long, with introduction and notes by John Beveridge; and a volume of American short stories of the 19th Century, chosen by John Cournos, and containing well-selected examples by Poe, Herman, Melville, Thomas, Bailey Aldrich, Ambrose, Bierce, Henry James, Richard Harding Davis, Jack London and others. Other volumes include Lessing’s “Laocoon,” “Nathan the Wise,” and Minna von Barnhelm," translated by W. A. Steel, in which we have English versions of the work of an eighteenth century German classic; “Minor Poets of thb Eighteenth Century," with an Introduction by H. P. Faussett, in which many old favourites are collected: and Eden and Cedric Paul’s translation of Karl Marx’s “Capital.” Altogether the last bundle of “Everyman” should give pleasure to many a reader whose purse is nbt too well lined. “The King’s Treasures of Literature.** Dent’S series, “The King’s Treasures Of Literature” has recently received gome notable accessions. Among others, I note that wonderful and weird little- story by Robert: Louis Stevenson, “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” the idea of which is said to have occurred to the Scots writer during his residence in Bournemouth, when his' wife heard him uttering cries of horror in bls sleep. On being aroused, he told her, “I was dreaming a fine bogey tale,” Then there is “Q’s” “Poison Island,” with that cold-blooded Frenchman-, Dr. Bauregard; “Alice in Wonderland,” “The Hunting of the Snark,” and “Poem from Sylvie and Bruno.” The books as£ good value, and being of handy format, is just the thing for not too long journey by steamer or rail. Gibbon could understand the “nobility of the Spensers” being enriched by tf J trophies of Marlborough, but he exhorted the family to consider the Faery Queene ag “the most precious jewel of their coronet” The “poet’s poet” Spenser was called by Charles Lamb, and the “Faery Queene” (first book) is a valuable addition to this charming little series, as is the volume of “Selection from Milttm,” with Macaulay’s “Essay” on that famous writer, with also the criticisms of Augustine Birrell and Hazelt. To the late W. H. Hudson we must owe a volume, “Birds of Wing,” containing besldefe a selection from “Far Away and Long Ago.” some of her sketches of bird Ute in London, Sussex, and Hampshire. Miss Edith Howe’s “Sandals of Peatt” are delightful fairy stories, but why omit all mention of the illustrator’s name. A volume entitled "Dickens and Daudet” contains a number of passages (in English) from in which the imagination of Dickens was a leading influence. The essays in comparison, by Edward Garret, are very well done, and to all Dickenslans and admirers of Alphonse Daudet, the little volume should be very alluring. These are all well chosen, beautifully printed reprints:

SOME RECENT FICTION Theodore Dreiser. “A Gallery of Women," by Theodore Dreiser (Constable and Co.), is the latest Dreiser book to be added to the English edition, which now includes those earlier novels, “Sister Carrie” and “Jennie Gerhardt," each in its day arousing the fury of American “AntiVice” societies, as well as the financial stories, “The Titan,” “The-Genius,” and the portentiously long “American Tragedy,” which came out about a year or so ago. Mr. Dreiser is scarcely, I shall always think, at his best in the short story, and in this “Gallery of Women” be is too fond of a preference for Russian or Continental heroines. He is, however, wonderfully detailed in bls portraits, and in “Albertine” and “Ernestine” his characters, although ovOr-lengthily described, live in the memory. There may be too much comedy in his “Bridget Mullanpby,” but “Mrs. Mullanphy” is West-side New York all through, and her wastrel husband is enough to make any Tube crowd “chortle and guffaw.” Mostly very clever and readable, but I prefer Mr. Dreiser in his usual three-decker. By the Author of “Spanish Gold.” All who remember Mr. George A. Birmingham’s “Spanish Gold” will recall Mr. J. J. Meldon and his friend, Major Kent. Both gentlemen, now living in retirement in England, return to Ireland in Mr, Birmingham’s new story, “The Major’s Candlesticks” (Methuen), this time on the shores of the River Shannon, where, they are on the search for lost treasure, in the shape of seven silver candlesticks which are buried in the muddy bed of that stream, where the Major had lost them in his haste to escape from the Insurrectionary activities of the Irish, who had let a River Shannon hydraulic power scheme to a German gentleman of Hamburg origin. Upon this basis Mr. Birmingham builds a story, in which the Rev. J. J. Mildon shines as the chief figure, in whimsical situations fully as mirth provoking as those in “Spanish Gold," situations which, incidentally, give a different view of the Irish position than has been revealed by Lian O’Flatherty, Sam O’Casey, and others of the new Irish literary school. There are several subsidiary characters in Mr. Birmingham’s new comedy, which may be commended to readers as providing mirthful entertainment not surpassed by any of his earlier novels. Three New "Detectives.” To Messrs. Methuen and Co.’s “Clue Story" series have recently been added “The Corpse in the Church,” by T. F. W. Hickey, and “The Gilchrist Case," by John Barclay. The first deals with the mysterious murder of the Rev. Edwin Ward, rector of Loaming. Ward was unmarried, hadn’t made a single enemy, had no enemies, and was an amiable book lover. Four very ordinary people—a wife, her daughter, an aunt, and a surplus woman—become involved in the unravelling of the murder mystery. The husband of one is arrested for the murder, but is quite innocent. It is the aunt, ever a sleuth, Working on carefully-observed clues, and well-th Ought-out inferences, but a rather stupid and unwilling victim of the circumstances which drag her into the affair, who stumbles upon the truth

and discovers the criminal. The good rector had been murdered in order that the culprit might make away with a tell-tale page of the church marriage register.

“The Gilchrist Case” deals with the death, followed by the exhumation of Mrs. Gilchrist, a miserly, bad-tempered old woman, whose stepdaughter, Sylvia, Is suspected of having poisoned her, and is arrested, much to the indignation and dismay of her godfather, who devotes time and money to prove her Innocence. Unfortunately poor Sylvia, rebelling against her stepmother’s Jll-treatment of her, had more than once threatened to show her up. This, with some circumstantial evidence against her, results in a verdict of guilty, but the efforts of her godfather secure the proof that her stepmother’s death was really due to a hypocritical scoundrel named Timmins, and the girl is. released, though the judicial proceedings ring her death. “The Gilchrist Case” is a well-told novel, which shows how easily a rather foolishly outspoken young woman may find herself in a very dangerous position. “The Man Who Was There” (Methuen and Co.), by Mr. Temple Ellis, commences with the murder of a Stock Exchange magnate in the morning, following which a stranger is found sitting quietly in an armchair perusing Palgrave’s “Golden Treasury." The detective hero of Mr. Ellis’s latest novel, “The Inconsistent Villains” (which won the first prize of £250 in the publishers’ detective story competition), sets out to unravel the web of mystery and follows up several clues, in one of which the poetry-reading stranger is concerned. The clues fail, but the shrewd and persevering detective plods on until be has cleverly laid bare the Veal origins of the crime, which turn oh the dual Identity of the murdered man, A really ingenious and thrilling detective yarn. Industrialised Japan.

INTERESTING MAGAZINES

If evidence were needed of the Westernisation of Japan it is to be found in the newspapers of that country. Models of craftmanshlp and bearing all the marks of modern journalism, these papers are remarkable in that they are bi-lingual. They serve a huge native population and at the same time hold the attention of the vast foreign commercial Interests connected with the country. A notable example of the contact these papers maintain with Western commerce is provided by the overseas trade number of “The Asahi.” Richly illustrated, many of the pictures being in colour, this number sets forth in a striking manner the claims of Japan to a share of the world’s trade. In articles, statistics and illustrations the number gives such a remarkable impression of the industrial resources of Japan that the wonder of the country’s rise from mediaevalism in less than a century is lost in admiration of the achievement. PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED I “Pan Pacific Progress” for April. Official organ of. thb Pacific Travel Club. Los Angeles, California. “P.L.A. Monthly,” May issue of the magazine of the Port of London authority. Newton & Co., London, 1/-. “British and Colonial Printer and Stationer,” May J, a weekly journal for the trade. London, 3d. “Magazine of To-day,” May. The latest addition to the British periodical press. An illustrated review of modern life and literature, presented in a manner which marks a radical departure from the usual magazine of this type. Edited by Harold Herd, Fleet Publications, London, 1/-. “British Documents on the Origins of the War,” Vol. VI. Reviewed on cable page, June 11. H.M. Stationery Office, London.

Intimate, tnstrnctlve tad antortafalß* each Is the “WIFE AND HOME" JMgaziiWu In the May issue Just out there is an artielo on "Burning Questions for Wives.” This Is a splendid feature and discusses several difficult problems met with by married folk. What are your tastes In Home Colome Schemes—hare you a leaning towards the gay or the sombre ? Beautiful coloured Illustrations are features of thia instruttlva series. There’s a new story by Margaret Culkin Banning commencing in this (tho June) issue of “MODERN HOME.” Flora Kllckman’s “WOMAN'S MAGAZINE” has been popular for years and its popularity will never wane whilst it maintains the high standard of the current May issue. Splendidly produced on good paper, profusely illustrated with excellent photographs, pictorial and otherwise, and *ith al! the matter attractively written, it is • magazine that any agent is proud to recommend.