LITERARY NOTES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18189, 23 June 1927, Page 5

LITERARY NOTES.

(Special to the “Star.”) LONDON, May 12. New Fiction. A favourite subject of debate for literary societies is the correct length for a novel. Many authorities have given their opinion, but it may be doubted whether the question has } r et received a conclusive answer. It really depends on the author, and who would shorten “Vanity Fair” and, “David Copperfield”? Mr Brett Young has taken nearly 900 pages to draw his “Portrait of Clare” (Heinemann), but it is not easy to find justification for this large canvas. Coming to the end of a very agreeable book we wonder whether Clare Lydiatt, the subject of the stud}', was important enough to fill so much space. Her life contains nothing very extraordinary. When quite young she marries, for love, Raloh Hingston, the son of an industrial baronet. This happy idyll ends in the South African War with widowhood and an only son. She marries, but without love, the family lawyer, Dudley Wilburn, and for a period spends a miserable existence in the bleak town of North Bromwich, torn between love for her spoilt son and duty towards her husband. The Great War releases Stephen, the son, and heir to the Kingston fortune, from his stepfather’s close-fisted rule, and Claire follows him to Salisbury Plain. Here she meets Colonel Hurst. The3’ in love, and after the war is over, neighbours in Worcestershire, are unjustly overtaken by scandal, but Dudley Wilburn, now dying, although he does not know it, instructs Claire how to obtain evidence for divorce from him, and her future happiness is assured. So we leave her “a small, neat, greyhaired woman with delicate hands . . . a gentle mouth, which had known sorrow, and happy eyes, that were still full of tears.” A Chesterton Fantasy. Mr Chesterton’s latest novel, “The Return of Don Quixote,” published today by Messrs Chatto and Windus, must be regarded as a serious literary event. It is a deliberately-intentioned work, and was planned and partly written in the days before the Great War intervened to upset his, and so many more, men’s well-laid schemes. Mr Chesterton himself says that it may be taken as an unconscious prophecy, implying the idea of an “anti-revolution-ary revolution.” An Idea which, by the way, has been curiously worked out by Mussolini and the Italian Fascismo. “The Jury.” Mr Eden Phillpotts’ latest story, “The Jury,” (Hutchinson) is in the nature of a tour de force. Practically the whole 1 # rative i‘s taken up with the deliberations of a jur> r , of which two members are women, and is a good deal of irrevelance in the deliberations. Perhaps the real distinction of the story lies in Mr Phillpotts’ subtle characterisation of the members of the jury and the light thrown thereby on the little Redchester community of which they are typical citizens. The delay in coming to a decision is owing to the obstinacy of one of the women, who is unable to make up her mind, or to have it made up for her. And, inevitably, when she gives way and is finally cajoled into agreement with the verdict of guilt}-, by a rather obvious incident, the verdict turns out to be the wrong one. Mr Phillpotts has. I think, made the mistake of extending a good idea for a short story to the length of a full-dress novel. Best Sellers. I made a curious discovery the other day. My bookseller in Piccadilly told me that he was selling large numbers of the cheaper edition of the Prime Minister’s book “On England.” But an inquiry from another member of the trade, whose shop lies a little East of Temple Bar, elicited the information that Laski’s Communism was easily the most popular political reading just now. That city boundaries should, in some measure affect the character of book sales is not surprising, but that Fleet Street, Lombard Street and Gresham Street, are earnestly studying Communism is at least a cause for reflection. In reminiscences and biograph}-, Mr Ernest Tesiger’s “Practically True,” shares the honours with Wellington in Lady Burghclere’s “A Great Man’s Friendship.” And among novels, Mr Cosmo Hamilton’s just published “Undelivered Letters,” and Miss Rosamund Lehmann's “Dusty Answer"— both good books—are in* demand. Books and Writers. Lord Oxford is writing another volume of his reminiscences, but it is unlikely to be finished for publication this autumn, although, despite the neuritis which keeps him in his country home on the Thames, Lord Oxford works constantly on the book. But the liter--1 ary activities of the ex-Premier’s household are by no means confined to its head. Several new books are to come from Sutton Courtney and Bedford Square. Lad}' Oxford (“Margot”) has just finished her first novel—a hunting story of the shires—as well as a volume of collected essa}'s; while Mr Cyril Asquith is the author of a new study of trade union law. Princess Bibesco, who is frequently to be found under the parental roof, and whose “Poems” appeared earlier in the year, is now writing a pla}', and Captain Herbert Asquith has just finished a novel. Many years have passed since Mr Upton Sinclair caused such a commotion in Chicago with his book, “The Jungle.” which, indeed, attracted the attention of the whole world to the notorius stockyards. Mr Sinclair has never ■written another novel which has caused the same stir, although his methods have been followed with notable success by other American writers, but it is probable that his new story, called “Oil,” (Messrs Werner Laurie), will create something in the nature of a sensation. The book, it has been said, is an epic picture of the oil industr}', taking in the world struggle. It is, ,

further, a panorama ot business ana politics, jazz-dancing and evangelism, love and war, diplomatic intrigue, strikes, gaols and revolutionary martyrdom. Mr Anthony Trollope created the Barchester tradition, and since that time many novelists have taken some particular line of country as their own. But few novelists have made a country so entirely their own as Mr Eden Phillpotts. in whose novels serious students of fiction have always recognised the effort to present the life of Dartmoor—“an effort as large and as finely sustained as any in modern fiction.” We are now to have a limited, and autographed, edition de luxe of Mr Phillpotts’ Dartmoor novels. This will be named the “Widdicombe” edition and will include a prefatory essay by Mr Arnold Bennett. Mr Algernon Cecil has found an original as well as an interesting way of writing the history of British Foreign policy in the last century in his new book “British Foreign Secretaries,” (Bell and Sons), which contains studies of the Personality and Policy of eleven leading statesmen from 1807 to 1916. Mr Arthur Waugh, who is among the most distinguished of the many devotees of cricket literature, has compiled a delightful anthology of the best stories about the game. The authors chosen the orthodox number of a team. But “A Cricket Eleven” includes interludes of verse and some illustrations as well. It will be published by Gerald Howe next week. Seme New Fiction. “The Return of Don Qui'xote." by G. K. Chesterton. (Chatto and Windus). “Sister Carrie,” by Theodore Dreiser. (First published in London in 1901. Constable). “Cinderella of the Cinema,” by W. Bernard Rolt. (Heinemann). “Grey Brother and Others,” by Dorothea Conyers. (Mills and Boon).