Books Reviewed

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 642, 19 April 1929, Page 14

Books Reviewe d

A BOOK OF FAIRIES. A BOOK of fairy stories, collected from the nurseries and firesides of the world, “Green Magic’* is a thing all delight. Miss Romer Wilson is the gatherer; Violet Brunton has done excellent pictures in colour and line —not too many, just enough to stimulate the eye without calling it too often from the printed page. Rightly, there are few tales by Andersen and the brothers Grimm here: every child but the very unlucky has all the quiet, be-

witching Andersen ones and all the deliciously alarming, grotesque Grimm ones to begin with. So here are French, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, ■ Rumanian, and Chinese tales, with : Kingsley’s “Perseus” and “Ali Baba” and one or two others quite familiar: but the great find, as Miss Wilson says, is “The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse,” a story which (if she is right) has dropped out of common knowledge. Certainly we never met it before. Miss Wilson deserves a pipe of canary for resurrecting it. Her introduction. though, misses the right tone, but how it does is a little hard to say. Perhaps by suggesting an unbending, or talking down, with that quizzical, indulgent smile which, in introducing fairies, “will never do.” At least, not for children. But children will love this book, and should be given the chance to. “Green Magic.” A Collection of the World’s Best Fairy Tales. Edited and arranged by Romer Wilson. Jonathan Cape, Ltd. Our copy from the publishers. Abra’m. In “Forever Free” Mrs Honore Willsic Morrow presented a lifelike picture of Abraham Lincoln at White House, from his entry to the time of his Proclamation of Emancipation. “With Malice Toward None” continues the story. Lincoln is already moving, while the Union forces are still far from victory, to the reconstruction which must follow it, and knows that a second term as President is essential to his policy. He must have the support of Charles Sumner, and the book opens with his staggering realisation that he cannot depend on it. Sumner has deserted him. The book depicts the double struggle, the struggle in the field, up to the fall of Richmond, the struggle between Lincoln and Sumner. It has all the merits of the preceding —volume, which was most heartily commended here on its appearance. Mrs Morrow has absorbed her material and made it imaginatively her own, so that the historic figures and events are not lfke exercises in reanimating a textbook but authentic and moving. Her period gives her a great subject, and her use of it is admirable. “With Malice Toward None.” Honors Willsic Morrow. Jonathan Cape, Ltd. Our *opy from the publishers. The Patriotic Pirate. There is plenty of thrilling adventure to be had with young Ben Abbott among buccaneers, French colonists, British sailors and soldiers and American settlers —if you allow Mr Raymond McFarland to lead you back into the pages of history, to the days of the war between Britain and France over the American colonies. The clash of cutlasses and the boom of cannon sound merrily through the tale of “The Sea Panther”—Black Harry, the patriotic pirate who “went no more a-roving” in order to devote his particular talents to the confounding of the French. There are many welldrawn characters in this breezy tale of the sea. “The Sea Panther.” Raymond McFarland. Cassell. Our copy from the publishers. Radio Principles Explained The latest theories in radio are explained in Methuen’s newest addition to their well-known series of monographs on physical subjects. Mr. J. H. Ratcliffe, M.A., the author, is a fellow and lecturer of Sydney Sussex College, Cambridge. He gives in wonderfully condensed form, a clear and complete review of present-day problems in radio that puzzle both expert and amateur. The booklet was certainly designed principally for physicists, but the

practical engineer will find much that will help to illuminate long-standing problems. The man who "knows a bit about wireless” will be able to follow the subject to his benefit by merely ignoring the purely technical formulae and diagrams. An interesting theory as regards fading is advanced. This involves the Heaviside layer theory, which is explained at some length. Many questions that most short-wave enthusiasts find puzzling are also dealt with. “The Physical Principles of Wireless,” by J. A. Ratcliffe, M.A. Our copy from Methuen and Co., Ltd., London. Some Italian Festivals A book recording some of the fastdisappearing festivals celebrated for centuries by the peasants of Italy—- “ Some Italian Scenes and Festivals” —has been written by Thomas Ashby, late director of the British School at Rome. There is ample scope for such a book in the English language. Italy, ever since the Renaissance, has been favoured by English visitors —howmany thousands must have travelled the country in making the “Grand Tour”—and it is right that the scenes that have interested visitors in the past should be preserved, if only in book form, for visitors to come. The book consists of a number of recollections of the festivals and Saints’ Days in which the author himself has taken part, with the addition of valuable quotations from the works of earlier writers. .Many of these fes-

tivals are gradually dying out or being modified by the passing years. “In some regrettable instances,” says the writer, “it is found that the distinctive costumes of the different districts or villages have now given place to ordinary dress”—and even now it is difficult to define with any complete accuracy the origins of the ritual observed. But the volume is no dull compilation of facts, dates and statistics. The scenes in the little towns of the Italian Campagna are admirably described. “Some Italian Scenes and Festivals,” by Thomas Ashby. Published by Methuen and Company, London. Our copy direct from the publishers.

Sheila Kaye-Smith’s New Novel. Less of the deep understanding and feeling which Miss Kaye-Smith has always shown for the folk of little farms is displayed in her last novel, “The Village Doctor.” But the story has a charm in which old English atmosphere combines with the attraction of very human people. Philip Green comes into a tiny village practice from the London wards; he understands surgery, hygiene, the alleviations and preventives of modern life. But his new charge is a village, whera the stream and the drain are cheerfully one, and where any reform is blindly opposed by the fathers of the lonely little world. Loneliness and a kind of tenderness drive him to marriage with Laura, the daughter of a “gentleman farmer,” whose gentility is recognised by nobody but his own family. Her rather pathetic and wistful desire for culture make her a lily among the wholesome sheaves of the village. But after a few weeks of marriage, he finds that the soil holds her, and that any real feeling she may possess is given to Saul Peascod. a wild but picturesque individual, half gipsy, half farmer, and not at all gentleman. How a typhoid epidemic brought the village to its sanitary senses and Laura back to the shelter of her doctor’s quiet kindliness are developments of a skilfullj—wrought tale. “The Village Doctor.” Sheila Rave-Smith. Cassell. Our copy from the publishers. When Piracy Was The Vogue, Mr Robert W. Chambers has done a great deal of research into the history of the days when the “Jolly Roger” flew along the Spanish Main, and in so doing discovered material for a romance that is not all Action. In “The Rogue’s Moon,” his newest novel, one makes the acquaintance of Mr Teach, sometimes known as BlackBeard: of Captain Death, Israel Hornygold, Francis Farrington Sprigg, and Jack Rackham; and of the redoubtable women pirates, Anne Bonny and Mary Reid, and a roystering, bloodthirsty company they were, if Mr Chambers tells but half the truth. In point of fact, the foreword suggests that more than half the truth is told. In which case Mr Chambers has found it an easy matter to elaborate fact very little to produce as picturesque a tale of piracy along the east coast of North America as could be desired. “The Rogue’s Moon.” Robert W. Chambers. Cassell. Our copy from the publishers. Bennett Has An Accident. Arnold Bennett’s latest, his publishers assure the public, will be read “not only for its story, but also for its philosophy.” In point of fact, there is considerably more philosophy than story in “Accident,” the account of the adventures which befel a wealthy London man of affairs on a quick run to Genoa by train de luxe. A man is very much alone with his thoughts on a railway journey that is wholly familiar to him, an c i there are few writers to excel Bennett in making copy of a man’s mental ramblings. In this case he allows just enough incident to keep his principal’s thoughts under the whip as it were. For instance, there is the encounter with his daughter-in-law running away from her husband. aEd the encounter with his con running after the running-awav wife. A pleasant book in the best Bennett style, although possibly rot one of the best Bennett books. “Accident.” Arnold Bennett. Cassell. Our copy from the publishers. The Spell of Italy. The soft air of Italy blows through “The Orange Court.” a new and striding novel by Coppard. An Englishwoman, hurt, disappointed, and deceived, but still a very living woman, comes to Italy, to find in the orange court that peace which her English world could not give. Almost imperceptibly, the spell of Italy is woven about her soul. Friends and admirers come her way. but they are mainly part of the scenic effects—the nights in which oranges are picked under the grave Mediterranean stars, the sparkling days spent by the sea. There is conflict, at last, between the heroine’s old world and her new; but Italy and the orange court win, and in the very gallant company of Ruggiero, she disappears into an Italian background. ‘The Orange Court.” Lilv Anne Coppard. Jonathan Cape. Our copy from the publishers.