MYSTERY AND IMAGINATION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26775, 19 May 1948, Page 2

MYSTERY AND IMAGINATION

Literature

THE WORK OF M. P. SHIEL

The Best Short Stories of M. V. Shiel. Selected by John Gawsworth. Gollancz. 13s 6d. It is rare in these days for a genuine literary talent to go virtually unrecognised, but such appears to have been the unfortunate experience of M. P. Shiel, an Irish romantic novelist who died only a year ago. For some 40 years Mr Shiel had written and published his books. He enjoyed a success among critics and authors, but so far as far as the general reading public was concerned his books weie almost stillborn. There are signs that at last justice will be done to him. He was recently the subject of full-length critical treatment on the Third Programme of the 8.8. C., and now Victor Gollancz publishes a dozen of his best short stories. They are of sucn quality as to entitle him to a place among the great writers of the fantastic and macabre. For those who relish this type of entertainment, here is a rich field for exploration. These stories cover a wide range. In two of them are introduced the Prince Zalewski, a philosopher whose powers of deduction are in the best Poe tradition. Other tales are in erudite and recondite vein, others conceal >he wildest fantasy under a factual cloax. There is horror, poetry, inventiveness, and romance. Constantly the comparison with Poe comes to the mind, but Shiel is no mere copyist and the reader will likely be forced to the conclusion that in these tales Poe lives again. D. G. B.