FAMILY CHRONICLE

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 154, 27 March 1937, Page VIII (Supplement)

FAMILY CHRONICLE

Miss Du Maurier Puts Her Ancestors Into a Novel “The Du Manners,” by Daphne Du Maurier (London: Gollaucz). Miss Du Maurier has constructed a novel from the lives of her ancestors, beginning with a certain notorious Mary Anne Clarke and ending with the marriage of her grandfather. George Louis Palmella Busson du Maurier, famous as “Punch’’ artist and author of “Trilby” and “Peter Ibbetson.” Mary Anne Clarke is easily the outstanding character in the book, and, it is easy to see that Miss Du Maurier has thoroughly enjoyed dragging this disreputable and ridiculous figure from the cupboard that held the family skeletons. When we meet Mary Anne Clarke she is about to leave England with her two children. George and Ellen. A.s the discarded mistress of the Duke of York, she has played her cards so shrewdly that she is in possession of an annuity from the Duke, and both of her children, who were born before her attachment for the Duke, and are therefore not his, are modestly provided for. She at least made a success of her profession, but she remained an incorrigible old character whom the serious-minded Ellen regarded as a disgrace to the end of her days. The early chapters of the book, when Miss Du Maurier puts witty obscenities into the mouth of her great-great-grandmother, dresses her in outrageous clothes and surrounds her with dubious friends, while the daughter studies languages and plays the harp with real talent, have a life and vigour which becomes atrophied for long periods later in the book.

Ellen Clarke married the brother of a friend whom she had made in Paris —a picturesque young man, Louis Mathurin Busson du Maurier. He had definitely a spark of genius, but no money sense, and in a lifetime of inventing did not make one success. Ellen, from a neglected childhood, became an embittered and disillusioned wife. Yet her husband was always faithful and tender to her, arid they had moments of intense happiness when he sang exquisitely and she accompanied him upon the harp. The continued struggle with grinding poverty becomes too nerve-racking and prolonged for even the most sympathetic reader. There were three children of the marriage, George, Miss Du Maurier’s grandfather; Eugene, a young reprobate whose requests for money to absolve himself of indebtedness always coincided with other family misfortunes; and Isabella, who married unhappily. As children, these young Du Mauriers were happy enough, but for the mother it was ail such a long, sad story one wonders if it were necessary to tell it at length. When “Kicky,” George du Maurier, becomes the central figure of the story the reader takes heart again. His futile struggle to be a chemist to please big father, his study of art in Paris, Belgium and Germany, his threatened blindness, and, finally, his truly happy marriage and material success, make such vital reading that it seems a pity that he and Mary Anne Clarke are separated by so many chapters of family worries and disappointments, which could have been sketched in with less meticulous care and attention to wearing detail. There are many subsidiary characters; all quite skilfully drawn, but the book leaves the impression that where inspiration failed Miss Du Maurier bridged the gap by heing determinedly faithful to detail. PERIOD FURNITURE “English Period Furniture,” i,y Charles H. Hayward (London: Evans Bros.).

The object of this book, ilic latest volume in the Woodworker Series, is to show tiie kind of furniture in common use from about 1500, the earliest period from which specimens have survived to any extent, up to about 1800, when, says the author, “it began to decline from the dignity of antiquity into the merely second-hand.” The book also traces the stages of evolution through which English furniture passed during those years, and in doing so reflects to a marked degree the conditions under which the people of the period lived. Mr. Hayward is writing for the man in the street with an interest in period furniture and so does not enter into too many technicalities. He provides the reader with the information he needs to be able, when lie sees a period piece, to recognise the style of Hie period and to put an approximate date to it. For this purpose Hie illustrations. specially drawn from antiques, are particularly helpful. BOOKS IN DEMAND The chief libarian of the Wellington Public Libraries has furnished the following list of books in demand: — GENERAL. “White Magic.” by .1. Maskelyne. “Adventuring in Coral Seas,” by A. F. Ellis. “Mauretania,” by H. Jordan. FICTION. "The Stranger Prince," by M. I rwin. “The Coward's <’lnl>." by F. I>. II rierson. "No Fury," by Francis Beetling.