A TAMER OF WILD BEASTS

Southland Times, Issue 21997, 22 April 1933, Page 11

A TAMER OF WILD BEASTS

In “Amri Clare,” Doro’thy Black has the story of the profligate reformed by the innocence of the young thing placed by chance in his care, but she has carried it to a conclusion which is not usually applied in such circumstances. Amri Clare as a baby was left by her parents in a home for unwanted children, kept by Mrs Marsden, and when she had grown into a beautiful young woman she was sent for a holiday on the yacht of an unofficial guardian, but she went to the wrong vessel and found herself instead out at sea with Jock Inigo as her sole companion, and Inigo, whose wife had just deserted him, is a rather bad man. His designs on the fair Amri are thwarted by her innocence, and he becomes her guardian. In that role he is greatly concerned when the handsome Count Stefan, with a reputation excelling that of Inigo’s, carries her off to his castle in the mountains. But he

need not have worried—Arnri’s artlessness tames the beast again and Stefan, reformed, marries her, while Jock and his wife, under the benign influence of Amri, are reunited. This romance seems to impress on the reader that emphatic innocence is the best protection against the world, and is, as well, one of the most effective of the reforming_unctions. “Amri Clare,” by Dorothy Black (Messrs Geoffrey Bles Ltd., London). SAWDUST “All Quiet on the Western Front” early this year was removed from the municipal library at Dessau, Germany, by order of the burgomaster. Trotsky’s books have also been banned, and all pacifist and Communist works are to be replaced by “National” books. Having dealt with Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great, Stephen Graham has now done a biography of Boris Godounov, the sinister figure about whom Moussorgsky wrote an opera. Two months before his death, John Galsworthy completed a new novel which will be published in due course.

Bernard A. Watson, a director of the London publishing firm of Ivor Nicholson and Watson, is on a business tour of Australia and New Zealand. He is a son of Angus Watson, a canned goods manufacturer, of Newcastle-on-Tyne Both he and Ivor Nicholson were educated at Mill Hill School, and Mr Nicholson used to be a director of a magazine publishing company.