Book Chit Chat.

Free Lance, Volume XVII, Issue 916, 1 February 1918, Page 23

Book Chit Chat.

By The Worm

"~0 ETURNENTG from a . good old "loaf" in the Marlborough •Sounds, tasting the. delights of that "dolce far niente" —that sweet doing nothing—of which poets have raved I find my office table littered over with books awaiting review. Specimens of the newest literature pouring ceaselessly out from the press demand instant attention, for some of-them have waited long and I forthwith proceed to give them brief .mention. "The Glugs of Gosh,", by -C. J. Dennis (Sydney: Angus and Robertson, Ltd.). This is the latest excursion in verse by the author, of that red-hot favourite, "The Sentimental Bloke," and he dedicates it to his wife,' which is a very proper thing for any poet to do. "The Glugs of Gosh" is satirical allegory served up with the. piquant sauce of Dennis fun, but it differs from his previous works in not being put into the dialect of Wooloomooloo. A Glug is defined as "Ourselves as others see us," and the Kingdom of Gosh may be any part of . the British Empire. ; "Ogs" are the Huns, and is aptly suggestive of their swinish proclivities. "Swanks" are Government officials, and the "Lord High Stodge" Is, any pompous local authority. The book is illustrated in Hal Gye's now well-known style. In this freshest, essay in verse C. J. Dennis follows in the wake of delightful Lewis Carroll and keeps you pleasantly tickled by his tale of the Glugs of Gosh and their great King Splosh, Tush his virtuous Queen, the. stout Sir Stodge, the wise Judge Fudge, the way in which the Ogs (Huns) captured, the trade of Gosh where all the Glugs "Grey idle and proud of ease And easy to swindle and hard to please." ' . It tells how the Swanks with_ their tape.."entwined all Gluggisli' things." "While the-Lord High Swank' still ruled King Splosh With laws of blithex and rules of bosh." Read the book—you can't fail to enjoy it. - r • #--.*■ # * ' 'Cinema Plays," by Eustace H. Ball. (London: Stanley Paul, and - Co.) This booklet tells you how to ■write cinema plays and how to sell them, so it is bound to pique and satisfy the curiosity of a good many folk. The huge demand that exists for smart cinema plays is revealed by the state- • nient that 30,000 of them are produced yearly, and "at a conservative estimate £60,000,000 is expended in staging and advertising, selling and exhibiting these plays in; a \ twelvemonth. The stage play and the novel are found to be poor substitutes for the artistic scenarios of expert craftsmen." The book-tells you how to get to_ work if yon think you can cut some ice in turning out picture-plays. '..■*• *."■'■* * "Come Out of the Kitchen," by Alice Duev Miller. (London: Hodder and Stoughton.) A fresh, very readable and quite unconventional romance with a plot that suggests the authoress got her inspiration from "She Stoops "to Conquer." , It is American and tells how a young bachelor rents a swell mansion in Washington, takes over the servants, falls in love with the pretty cook, ' 'Jane ■ Ellen," and finds out in the endi after he has popped the question' that he is engaged to Miss Claudia - Revelly, his landlord's daughter. The story is hrightly told.

"Wolfang," by J. Mills Whitham. (London.: Methuen and Co.) This is a strong story but not a pleasant one. The setting is the Great Moor in England, and, the tale itself is a. modernised English version of "Romeo and Juliet." A son of the squire, whose family are a wild and devil-may-care lots, falls in love with the only daughter (Heth) of a stern and inflexible Puritanical farmer. This modern Romeo ~ is already married but separated from his wife, and Heth has lost her lieart to. him before she finds out that "he is a grass widower. The stern old father is furious when he discovers the •attachment, and he takes drastic ac--tion to bend his ■'daughter to his will and compel her to wed a young farmer he has chosen for her. Heth escapes from her home and flies to her lover, Lance Wolfang, and insists on staying with him. Lance has a brother named Con who incarnates *all the worst vices of the family. One \ day he returns home to find Con in the act of assaulting Heth, and in his fierce wrath he murders him. The lovers by night "bury the corpse . in a deep tarn, but -their 'brief happiness is for ever shattered. Like Eugene Aram, Lance "Wolfang is tortured by remorse, his lealth breaks down, and, after a lin-

gering illness, he dies. Heth and her babe are penniless, her father is unforgiving, but the rejected farmer lover—-a simple, manly soul like Hall Caine's Pete —befriends her in her distress, and at last wins her consent to become his wife. The author is a practised novelist. His characters are well drawn and the story is told with graphic power. Tv TV ty* *yr Mr. J. H. Bunny, the author of "The Mystic Mantle," which I reviewed briefly some weeks ago, now informs me that arrangements have been made in New" York to publish an autographic edition de luxe of "The Mystic Mantle" directly the war is' over. This book is to be priced at ten dollars, and the issue limited to 500 copies.