BOOKS AND WRITERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19406, 14 August 1926, Page 7 (Supplement)

BOOKS AND WRITERS.

Actors, particularly if they are successful, do not. as a rule, find much time for novel-writing, but Cyril Maude has just completed "The Actor in Room 931," in which he is said to have created a character as human, as lovable . and as true to life as his famous "Grumpy," which lie portrayed so vividly upon the Stage.

Andre Maurois, whoso neatly novelised biography of Shelley, "Aerial," proved so successful, has now written a book curiously named "Mape," with the subtitle, "The World of Illusion." The-name was invented by the author's small daughter to describe a place where things happened tho way she wanted them to. And it struck her father as a wonderful title for a book about artists, Goethe, iirs. Siddons and Balzac.

Those who last year heard the members of the Oxford debating team upon the subject of Protection versus Free Trade may remember the dry humour of Mr. Douglas Woodruffe. The team came cut here via the United States and Mr. Woodruffe has now published "Plato's American Republic," in which he delivers himself, through tho . mouth of Socrates, of some shrewd criticisms of that great country. Socrates telis how the women of America found after their own hearts while he himself was but a modified success in his campaign against" the twin deities of size and salesmanship.

r "What is progressive advertising?" asked Lysias, in the ensuing Socratic dialogue. " It- is arousing the widest possible sense of want, says Socrates. " What is the Problem of Salesmanship ?" . asked Phaedo. "It is how best to mislead people about their own desires." America is found to be equally the para- ; dise "of him who would make a law and of him who would break "one," while tee--t totalism is pronounced a more dangerous extreme than drunkenness, " for- only a . very exceptional man can keep really drunk for long periods, whereas many : teetotallers stay teetotallers for months together.".

"The World of William Clissold," the new H. G. Wells' novel, which is arousing such keen anticipation, is to be published, owing to its unusual length, in an uuusual manner. Ernest" Beiin is bringing it out, printed in an eighteenth-century style, in successive volumes during September, October and November; Some who have been privileged to read the manuscript are convinced that the book is not only Mr.. Wells' greatest work, but that it is the triumph of his maturity as an artist —ho is now in his sixtieth year—and the greatest novel of the last 20 years crowded with recognisable figures discussing all the living qustious and speculations. Mr. Wells, however, in a vigorous " pre l .face " published in the London Observer says the book is not to be regarded as.Y roman a clef. "It is a work of fiction purely and completely. One thing which is something of an innovation has to be noted. A great number of real people are actually named in this story. It is, the author submits, impossible to got the full effect of contemporary life in which

" living ideas and movements play > a prominent part without doing that. You cannot have a man like William Clissold going about the world of to-day and? never meeting anybody one has ever heard of.

Mr. Stanley Baldwin's courageous firmness in dealing with the great strike, combined with his steadfast refusal to jump on a fallen foe, appealed so strongly to Englishmen of every class that it is not surprising to learn that two of the best sellers recently have been his own volume of addresses, " Oa England" and "SSta r ley Baldwin: A Biographical Character Sketch "by A. G. Whyte. Mr. Baldwin, we find, comes on both sides of Puritan stock. " Puritans, yeomen, small industrialists, great industrialists, such was too evolution of the Baldwins." He owes' much of his mental equipment to his mother who was one of four daughters of a Wesleyan Minister, who all 'made remarkable matches, his aunts''being Mrs. Lock-wood Kipling (mother of Rudyard Kipling), Lady Burne-Jones and Lady Poynter (wife of a president of the Royal " Academy.) >