NEW EDITIONS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21266, 21 February 1931, Page 4

NEW EDITIONS

BOOKS THAT HAVE PROVED THEIR WORTH. “Venice and Its Story.” By Thomas Okey. Revised Edition. With over 100 Illustrations in Colour and Black-and-White by Nelly Ericksen, W. H. Hlnchcllff, and 0. P. M. Ward. London: J. M. Dent-and Sons.’ (15s net.) “ Fly Pishing.” By Viscount Grey of Pallodon. New Edition, with two additional chapters by the Author, and new Wood Engravings by Eric Pitch Daglish. London: J. M. Dent and Sons. (10s 6d net.) "In Quest of the Sun.” By Alain Gerbault. Popular Edition. Illustrated. London: Hodder and Stoughton. (7s 6d net.) "The Stuffed Owl: An Anthology of Bad Verse.” By D. B. Wyndham Lewis and Charles Lee. With Eight Cartoons by Max Beerbohm. Second Edition. (6s net.) "The Autobiography of a Super Tramp." By W. H. Davies. Preface by G. Bernard Sliaw. New Edition. Illustrated. London: Jonathan Cape. (4s 6d net.) . " Everybody’s Boswell: Being the Life of Samuel Johnson ’ abridged from James Boswell’s complete text and from the ‘Tour to the Hebrides.’ " Illustrated by Ernest H. Shepard. London: J., Bell arid Sons. (10s 6d net.) " Complete Writing for Profit.” The Writer’s Omnibus. By Michael Joseph. Revised and Brought Up to Date. London: Hutchinson. (103 Od net.) It were as great a mistake to praise old books, just because they are old, as to keep all one’s admiration for new books because they happen to be new. Yet when a new and handsome edition comes from the publishers of such wellrespected works as Professor Okey’s “Venice,” Viscount Grey’s “Fly Fishing,” and W. H. Davies’s “ Autobiography of a Super Tramp,” and even of such very recent publications such as Gerbault’s “In Quest of the Sun,” and that shrewd and amusing compilation, “The Stuffed Owl,” one must accord it the very best of receptions because with ten thousand or so new books pouring from the presses each year, those must be good indeed which can continue to demand the attention of the public long after they have first appeared. Thus the task of the reviewer who has before him a selection of new editions of books already aging has a pleasant and an easy task. He has rather to introduce these veterans to those who have never happened to come across them than to criticise; the public demand has already established their reputation beyond reach of criticism. “Venice” first appeared_ in 1903, and is now in its fourth edition. Its first purpose is to transmit a realisation of the charm of the city whose streets are paved with water to those who have never been there, and who may never go. Its second is to instruct fully and pleasantly those more fortunate ones who have the opportunity and the inclination to make the personal acquaintance’ of one of the most picturesque of places. There is little that the reader will find in this work that will not add to his appreciation of Venice, will not illumine his conception of the city and perhaps even induce a pleasant sense of nostalgia tor unknown and impossible’ vistas. True, there is a shock or two, but Professor Okey wisely administers those in a preface short to the point of brusqueness: “The gondola with the private citizen has largely given place to ’the motor boat,” he says, “but the gondolier still hails the traveller on his arrival at the railway station and carries nim to nis hotel and to various places of interest, and the ferryman as of old answers to the call of Poppe! The gracefully draped shawl and the wealth of hair of the Vene-tian-popolana are fast disappearing, especially among the younger women, giving place to the bobbed hair, the abbreviated skirt and the artificial silken hose of the. up-to-date member of the female persuasion.” But Venice is still Venice, its beauty mercifully spared throughout the war, its story as rich in interest as ever, and it is of this Venice, the unchangeable Venice, that Professor Gkey writes. His hook would be valuable without illustrations, and with them it becomes worth treasuring. I‘ifty ox tne illustrations are in colour, and mil-page size, there are eleven photographic reproductions of famous pictures, twenty other tinted illustrations and 31 drawings in the text, and two maps. _ Venice, in fact, is a vade-mecum containing all that one need know of Venetian history, architecture, and painting.

Viscount Grey of Fallodon wrote Ily Fishing ” over 30 years ago, and it has passed through eight editions. It is, m fact, a classic on its subject, exhibiting to the full the principal charm of all good fishing books in that it recreates vividly those scenes that no fisherman or, for that matter, lover of the countryside, can forget. It will recall to the informed reader, be he a devotee to that most delicate of all angling arts, “ dry fly ” Ashing, or even one of those danglers of the lowly spiked worm, many delightful memories in his own fishing experience, and on those who have not themselves bad the peaceful hours and ecstatic moments that the fisherman enjoys it will exercise an equal charm for the beauty of its. piose, the variety and value of the information Lord Grey has to impart. In his retirement the author has found time to revise the work and to write two new chapters, and he offers the fruit of this new knowledge. The additional notes on salmon fishing will be found especially illuminating. The revised edition of “Fly Fishing” is enhanced in interest and m heauty as a well-produced book through the mem sion of the wood engravings including full-page illustrations, of Mr Eric Daglish - * * *

“And thus, after more than seven hundred entire days spent at sea, after more than' forty thousand sea miles traversed, after incessant struggles against the elements, I brought home my old, worn, and battered Firecrest, into a French port to carry out the promise made to - • • W friend, by wireless sent from the liner Paris after our separation in August, 1924: ‘You must be sad, tor one day I shall come back.’ ’’ This is the concluding paragraph in Gerbault’s “In Quest of the Sun, a book that, even if it and its author had not been widely known, would have found a wide public. One must realise before commencing this hook as one will learn in perusing it, that Gerbault is not an ordinary matter-of-fact person——he is a man in whom courage, idealism, and strangeness —some might say eccentricity, hut that is a strong word—are blended. His lone voyage around the world savours sometimes of a “stunt,” but it was not nor is Gerbault a sensation-seeker, despite the notoriety lie has earned. These facts will impress themselves upon even the prejudiced reader and make him a friend of the French Ulysses. The “Anthology of Bad Verse” which Messrs D. B. Wyndham Lewis and Charles Lee have been pleased to compile under .the title “The Stuffed Owl aptly explained in the lines ot Uvicl, which are translated: We scan and approve of the better, We go for the worse. It deserved to run into a sbeond edition because it is original, because it is amusing, because the editors have done their ioS most thoroughly, and because by being educated to appreciate the badness ot the good verse herein contained the lover ot poetry is made better able to appreciate the goodness of the good verse written by the victims of those searching critics. This new edition is substantially the same as the old, and contains Mr Beer boh m s cartoons. 'There are contributions from two more victims, a number of delightful additions to the hors d’ceuvre, which fomn the most lively part of an enlivening book, and a new index to subjects is provided which, the editors suggest, will be welcomed by serious students. Wc welcome “The Autobiography of a Super Tramp ” as one of the first issues of Messrs Jonathan Cape in their new, handsomely-produced, and reasonablypriced “Life and Letters”, series. The

autobiography first appeared over 20 years ago, when Mr Davies was practically unknown, save that his poetry had attracted the attention of some few critics and men of letters, including Mr Bernard Shaw. It was written in two months, the author at that time residing at a dosshouse, after his career as a tramp had been terminated through the loss of a foot while he was attempting to “ jump ” a train. As we now know, his career as a poet, and as a definitely important figure in contemporary literature, was just commencing, and, though it may not have brought him rich rewards, it has certainly brought him fame and some sunety of immortality. To his rise “ The Autobiography of a Super Tramp ” _ undoubtedly contributed. It is now in its thirteenth edition, and it is the one work of Davies that everybody should and can read. The present edition contains four portraits of the one by Augustus John, one by Laura Knight, a bust by Epstein, and a photographic study by Hoppe.

Those who have had the opportunity, in more leisurely years, of reading the whole of Boswell’s “Life of Samuel Johnson,” will probably most energetically protest that abridgment of the text_ is a criminal act. One would agree with them were it not necessary to agree also with the publishers of “ Everybody’s Boswell,” when they argue that modern life leaves less and less time for the long books in which a less hurried age delighted, and that the prestige which the best of them still enjoy is in, danger of becoming purely formal, a matter of convention unfortified by actual acquaintance. The reply, that nobody reads Boswell at a sitting but dips into, his biography as the mood dictates, is almost unanswerable; but if one is going only to dip, then one can dip as well, and with more assurance of pulling out' 1 a plum, in the abridged edition than in a tremendous edition consisting generally of several volumes. Messrs G. Bell and Sons need not, therefore, defend themselves. "Everybody's Boswell” isito be warmly welcomed for having fulfilled its object well, for the delightful drawings, numbering over 50, of Mr Shepard, and for the fact that the " Tour of the Hebrides,” an essential adjunct to Boswell's “Life,” also appears in abridged form. ’

Mr Michael Joseph wins our sympathy with and endorsement of his “Complete Writing for Profit” in spite of a tremendous prejudice against any volume or course which claims to tell people how to become authors. He is perfectly frank about the affair, and immediately confesses that his book does not pretend to teach anybody how to write. He hopes, rather, that it will help the beginner to avoid some pitfalls, and that the experienced writer may find some parts of it interesting. They should do so, for the discussion upon the publishers’ side of book production alone is most informative, and Mr Joseph's own admission I took up short-story writing as another man will take up stamp collecting or fretwork —as a hobby. I have no peculiar ability for fiction, and I have little imagination. ... I wrote merely what I thought I could sell; and that I am not at any rate far wrong in this respect is demonstrated by the fact that, with one exception, I have sold every story I have lyrittcu enables one to realise that to be an author one need not be a genius, but one must “ study the market.’ This omnibus volume contains five_ instruction books on aspects of authorship, with prefaces by well-known writers, and examples of short stories. J. M-