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Evening Star, Issue 23723, 2 November 1940, Page 4

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Admirers of Karel Capeb will be glad to , hear that another novel, ‘ The Cheat,’ is to come shortly from his • pen. This is a surprise, for ‘ The Rescue Party ’ was announced as his last novel. ‘ The Cheat ’is a portrait of a bogus composer. Among the autobiographies announced for immediate publicity are two by well-known writers: Mr A. G„ Street’s, which is entitled, a little* cryptically, * Wessex Wins ’ and Mr—or should we say Major?—Eric Liuklater’s, which will probably be called ‘ Gazebo.’ We are also promised the third instalment of Mr J. B. Priestley’s autobiography, ‘ Slow Train in a Blackout.’ The war is already taking toll of young writers who had begun to make their names. The obituary columns carried a brief notice last month of the death of Flight-lieutenant John Llewellyn Rees, whose books included * The Flying Shadow ’ and ‘ The .World Owes Me a Living.’_ He used the surname “ Ehys ” for his writing, most of which had a background of actual experience in the air. He was the husband of another talented young author—Jana Oliver, the novelist. Oxford has conferred the degree of Doctor of Letters honoris causa on Sir Rabindranath Tagore, the 80-year-old Indian poet. The ceremony took placet at the village of Santiniketan, Bengal,' where he has founded his own university. This is probably the first time that a special Convocation has, been held outside Oxford; it is certainly the first time that a recipient has made a speech of thanks in Sanskrit! Scholars from all parts of India were present. A correspondent wrote to ‘ John o', London’s Weekly ’: You have occasianally published photographs of th» graves of well-known writers, but I have not seen one of thednost charming, that of Michael Fairless, in Ashurst Churchyard, in the heart of- ‘ The Roadmender ’ country. Many readers of * The Roadmender ’ who have not actually seen the grave must know of it by description; a plain, wooden cross bearing the words, “ Lo! How I Loved Thee,” with the name, Margaret Fairless Barber, and date, August 24, 1901, at the base. It ia situated beneath the trees she loved so much, and I was pleased to see ou a recent visit that it is kept in excellent preservation. , Mr Hector Charles Bywater, who has died in his fifty-seventh year, was better known as a writer on naval aifairs for newspapers than as an author of books. But he had many publications to his credit, the most important being ‘Sea Power in the Pacific ’* (1921), a. frank discussion of the strategic problems confronting the United States in the Pacific. ‘ The Great Pacific War ’ (1935) was the story of an imaginary naval war between America and Japan. Mr Rothay Reynolds, who recently died in Jerusalem, aged 67, published recently a scathing indictment of Hitlerism in his book, ‘‘When Freedom; Shrieked.’ Ko Englishman was better acquainted with Germany, _ where ho was one of the most experienced andi philosophical of newspaper correspondents, and had spent 18” years in th» country. On the outbreak of the war he went to Italy to represent the* ‘ Daily Telegraph,’ and on Mussolini joining in the war was sent to the Balkans. Perhaps his outstanding books were * My Russian Year ’ and * My Slay Friends.’

Biography bulks large in the latest English publishing lists. The first placewill be taken by John Gore’s life of George V., based on his diary, which' he kept from the age of 14 to the day; of his death, and on his extensive cor-, respondence with people in _ many stations of life in many countries Literary subjects will be new accounts of Marvell, by M. C. Bradbrook and M.G. Lloyd Thomas; of Keats, by Betty Askwith; of Hardy, by Edmund Blunden; and of Housman, by Grant Richards. Fresh estimates will be forthcoming cf Judge Jeffreys, by H. Montgomery Hyde, and of John Knox, by George R. Preedy. Two characters of remarkable individuality, not_ to say eccentricity, will be portrayed in Setoit Dearden’s life of Laurence Oliphant and Philip Gosse’s of Charles Water ton. In reviewing a lately published new, edition of Mrs Gaskell’s ‘ Cranford.’ the Literary Supplement of ‘ The Times’ says: “ This, novel is, for all sorts of good reasons, a book worth rereading at the present time. Probably, there is no minor classic of English fiction so remote from our immediate preoccupations. True, Miss Matty on on® occasion recalls Boney’s threat of in* vasion, when she used to wake up in the night and think she heard tb» tramp of the French entering Cranford, and when people talked of hiding themselves in the salt mines— ‘ meat wonldl have kept capitally', down there, only perhaps we should have been thirsty. *■ But otherwise there is as innocent ni pleasure in revisiting the glimpses of the moon in Cranford as anywhere.’*