WOMEN NOVELISTS

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 90, 13 October 1931, Page 13

WOMEN NOVELISTS

INTERESTING COMPARISONS

Ah enjoyable; evening was spent recently at the Lyceum Club, when Mrs. Kerr, M.A., leader of the Penwomon's Circle, reaa a paper on"-'.''-fModern I Women. Novelists." The speaker said that it was sometimes alleged, that women did not excel in creative art, but ifl novel-writing, at least, they had ■always held their own. Two men.of the day, John Galsworthy and the late Arnold Bennett, were certainly outstanding. But in compiling a list, perhaps of. the first dozen or twenty, women would take approximately half the places. The speaker proceeded to study in some detail the work of Mary Webb, Sheila Kaye-Smith, Bose Macaulay, G: B. Stern, and others, and ended by'claiming that the four novels " The Golden Arrow," " Sussex Gorse,'' "Told by an Idiot," and "Mosaic" might form a group which would challenge comparison even with such works as. the "Forsyte Saga," "Old Wives' Tales," and "The Good Companions." Miss Keasberry followed with*sT short paper on the South African writer Sarah Gertrude Millin. During the evening Mrs. Sample read three original poems, and a delightful programme of music was provided by Mrs. P. H. Davey, L.A.8., and Mrs. 'G.-P: B. Inglis, L.A.B. -