THE BOOKSHELF

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22172, 27 July 1935, Page 9 (Supplement)

THE BOOKSHELF

NOTABLE BIOGRAPHIES f NO. 2. THE BRONTES r "The Brontes: Their lives recorded Ifcy their contemporaries" is the title <of yet another book about the Brontes. Miss E. M. Delafield is tho compiler. Tho Brontes, of course, usually means 'Charlotte -in particular, Charlotte in the foreground with a gesture made toward Emily, tho real genius of tho family, against a background eked out with the -Hew Patrick Bronte and Anne and Bran well. At long last everything has been revealed, and ono can spare a moment'' to wonder what Charlotte, the most reserved of people, Charlotte, triumphantly preserved Emily's privacy after her death, .would have to say about becoming a public figure. Charlotte's biography is written in jier own letters. It is tho revelation of her personality through her letters to her school friend, Ellen Nussey, that has made her more real, more alive •than those who make their immediate •circle. She would perhaps have sanctioned Mrs. Gaskell's biography, for this lady was at great pains to show Charlotte 'in the best possible light. Hers was not perhaps a true portrait, but written as it was shortly after Charlotte's death, it was tho only possible one. It was to win the gratitude of all future biographers. But Mrs. Gaskell saw tho Heyer letters. The time was not ripe for that revelation, or rather that was not tho aspect of Charlotte which sho wished to present, so those four letters were left to create « sensation at a later date. When these were handed over, the so-called guilty secret in Charlotte's life was . made much of. May Sinclair rushed' into print with her "Three Brontes" in an effort to vindicate Charlotte, and later the Abbe Dimnet presented a sympathetic full length por-. trait which made poignant reading. Mr. Benson's most sensible and unsentimental study of Charlotte brought readers to their senses, and left their judgment unimpaired. Now comes Miss Delafield's book, which fills in tho gaps and completes a presentable picture. Here are collected all the letters in existence which throw a light on the Brontes; personal touches written by friends and enemies, and therefore likely to form a composite picture somewhere near tho truth. "The Brontes: Their lives recorded by their contemporaries," compiled by E. M. Delafield. (Hogarth Press.) MEMOIRS OF A CHEAT I" ■ A BLUFF WHICH FAILS I" . . * If ever a book fras designed to pique the public attention it is "Memoirs of a Cheat," Sacha Guitry's Tale. It has all sorts of provocative trappings. First there is the.title; then it is girt about with a slim band which announces it as winner of the prize of a certain society (no book is complete without one nowadays); it leaves the question of biography or fiction delicately in the air; it has a "printer's justification," which is a skit on first and limited editions; it has a lot of new art illustrations which may mean anything or nothing; it hau modern printing; -and its contents and list of illustrations are placed at the end. , Here is something unusual, the publishers seem to promise. Between tho • covers is a snappy pieco of fiction which embraces one funny situation and one bright idea. The hero when a boy was ! sent to bed without any mushrooms for stealing eight sou, with the result that he became the only survivor of a family of 12, for tho mushrooms were ' poisoned. Deducing from this that dishonesty is the best policy he decided to become a cheat. . The rest of the book is a very slv«;ht and sketchy description of the life of a boy who became in turn boot-boy, page and'croupier; made a fortune and lost it, and ended in a minor capacity with, manufacturers of playing cards. There is a desperate attempt to achieve an individual style, which does not come off, and at the end there is, of all things, a moral, which in such a book looks like a lion's tail on a greyhound's body. "Memoirs of a Cheat." Sacha Guitry s Tale. (Grollancz.) V. ' , PUNCH SUMMER NUMBER INTELLECTUAL SPRING-CLEANING r "■ - As long as we have Punch there is little chance of England becoming a Communistic country. It is impossible to imagine that snobbish, urbane, complacent, leisurely humour flourishing under the earnest cumpulsion or munism. "The Summer Number 1935 prides itself on its laconism. There is ' not a word printed that could be done without, and every word has a purpose to fulfil; but for the most part the humour dopends on the drawing to bring out its salt. , One seldom laughs at Punch—its perusal is really an intellectual springcleaning. So many of its jokes are dar- > ing in that the least failure in drawing or clumsiness in wording would leave the joke in mid-air; it would crumble to ashes in the hand. -But what a warming of the heart there is where one of its national jokes, by means of a typical Punch twist, does come off. , Nothing in this volume is better than a drawing by Fougasse of a pair or Btolid British travellers, masterfully unimaginative, pronouncing a verdict on the Indian "rope trick. Whoever invented the , broadening influence ot travel had never met the typical British traveller. . e There is the usual predominance ot people falling off high cliffs, which is last replacing mothers-in-law as the national joke. Since someone invented . the well-known joke that Punch never is as funny as it was, no one dare breathe a word against it for fear of being thought old. Let it bo said at once then", that this Summer Number 1935 is as funny as ever. THE "GOOD OLD DAYS" Were the "good old days" as good as the modern person would like to believe? Such is the problem propounded, and effectively answered, by Mr. C. E. Lawrence in his novel " Week End at Forthriesi" Tho hook mjght be described as partly fantasy, for it is by an ingenious method that the author reveals to young Robert Forthries the villainies, the love, the courage and all the other eternal vices and virtues which existed in his family in the time pf his forbears. With this the author also tells a tale of charming romance of a type which one realises could scarcely obtain in these more modern and unsentimental times. If only because it provides something rather different from the usual novel of to-day, Mr. Lawrence's book pan be thoroughly recommended. ee ,k End at Fortliries," by C. E. Lawfence, (John Murray,)