MONDAY, APRIL 23, 1934.
LITERARY NOTES
£1,000 FOR
JANE
AUSTEN LETTER
Less Than £700 Earned With Four Novels.
DOMESTIC DUTIES FIRST
According to her nephew and biographer, Jane Austen was Tather
a
woman.
com-
attractive young He describes her as follows: "Her Agure was rather tall and slender, her step light and firm, and her whole appearance expressive of health and animation. In plexion she was a clear brunette full with a rich colour; she had round cheeke, with mouth and nose small and well-formed bright hazel eyes, and brown hair form- ing, natural curls close round her face,"
Jane
horn WAS
in the little
country parsonage of Steventon, Hants, where her father was ree- tor of this and the adjoining par- ish. ministering to only 300 par-
She was the youngest; ishioners.
at
-of seven children, and spent an uneventful life for 10 years the parsonage.
In 1801 the family moved Bath. because of the rector's
tu
-
never
health. He died there four years later. In the meantime Jane had begun to write. but would allow her literary work in inter- fere with her domestic duties.
Her best-known work, "Pride and Prejudice," and also her first. was written in 1796 and 1797, but turned down by the publishers, although her father had agreed to stand the risk. "Sense and Sen- aibility." which had actually been started before "Pride and Preju- dee," was the next to be finished. but it was not until 1811 that it was accepted and paid for (£160) by a London publisher.
Jane told a friend about "Pride gives and Prejudice:" "Egerton
£110 for it. I would rather have
had £150, but we could not be pleased, and I am not
should surprised that he choose to hazard so much."
both at all
not
THE CHINA MAIL.
Dillinger, Henchmen and Jail He Fled
HARRY PIERPONT
.* JOHN DILLINGER
LAKE COUNTY JAIĘ,
·Russant CoARK, From ancak thief te America's "Puhile Enemy No. 1" in the eburt span of six months is the achievement of John Dillinger, Mid-West bank robber and killer, whose latest expleit was sensational escape from Lake County jail at Crown Point, Ind. Eis first major crime was committed in June, 1933, when he robbed the bank at Galesville, Ind. Three other members of his gang, Harry Pierpont, Charles Makizy and Russell Clark, arg now in jail at Lima, O. awaiting trial slaying of Sherid Jesss Surber, killed when Dillinger was rescued-
from the Allen County fail last October. Since then the gang has raided 12 banks in four States, getting away with more than $200,000 Escape from Crown Point jail was regarded as impossible because of the large force of deputies armed with machine guns who guarded the fall night and day. Mra Lilian Holley, Lało- County's woman 'sheriff, asserted she would shoot Dillinger að sight if sver they meet again.
Written Three Novels
By Women
Versatile Writer's Story Of The Bull-Ring
Dorothy Parker's Crime Book
No English Equivalent For Authoress.
"AFTER SUCH PLEASURES”
FIRST NOVEL OF MERIT.
Familiar Theme Well
Treated.
This Charming Property. By Mar- garet Langmaid. (Holder and Stoughton, 78. 6.)
The theme is the familiar
one
JEEVES APPEARS AS HERO
P. G. Wodehouse Strikes New Note.
EVERY PAGE A CHUCKLE
Thank You, Jeeves. By P. G. Wode=!
Dorothy Parker's "After Such Pleasures" (Longmans, 68) is a
house. (Jenkins, 7s. 6d.) Jeeves, the hero of many short crime book. You may not at first recognise it as such, because she
stories, here appears for the first time as the bero of a novel, selects crimes that are perpetrated
You will learn nothing from this on the raw nerves, and are there of the confict between the coun-book that you have not already fore never brought to justice. try and the town. In one of the known about, nor will you learn She chooses her victims and her first of the red villas that advan-anything new about his employer, torturer; she sets the one delicate-ced upon Breede lived Lucía, en-Mr. Wooster. At the risk of seem- ly twanging on the nerves of the gaged to Peter, who was preparing ing churlish, it should be painted a fat in Hampsted. In one of the out how grave a reflection it is on. other, with the expert precision of farms lived George, engaged to the present condition of humorous the youngest of the Marx Brothers Mildred. ព country girl. The writing in England that Mr. Wode- were house is spoken of as Britain's playing on the harp. She is the banns of the two couples apostle of the unspoken comment. read simultaneously in church, national humorist.
but from the moment when Lu- When you reflect on the stream Her monologues and her sketches cia's suspender breaks and George of humorous creation that flowed thia give us delighted insight into the sees her leg we know that those from the pen of. Dickens in
country and of Mark Twain in point of view of the silent person weddings will not happen.
George got his Lucia; she tried America, how improverished it suffering these uneasy refinements
hard to settle down to the rude makes us feel that again and. of pain; but it is a peculiar. life of the farm, and in the end again, year after year, in book modern sophisticated, maddened quality of delight in which a wince does duty happiness was achieved. But the after book, our greatest
through humorist must work one trick way to happiness was for a laugh. Presently we ery bitter tribulation.
with two characters: Mr. Bertle This is Miss Langmaid's first Wooster and Jeeves! The extreme- she has no soothing syrup. to give novel, and it would not be sur-ly formal speech of Jeeves inter- laced with the fluttering foolish speech of Mr. Wooster: that is the essence of the trick that has fan- cinated us for so long. cal; then tell yourself sternly (and)
And long may it continue to fas- untruthfully) several times that
stop himself: "God keep me, when cinate us. It is not less effective life is not like that; thot
she asks for another lump of here than it has even been. Every life is clearly proportioned, sane, balanced, contented, kindly, divid-sugar, from holding it out to her page has its chuckle. But let us not forget that every new Jeeves and Wooster combinaton Many authors have been tempted phasises the poverty of comic in- ed into an equal chessboard of on my palm." give-and-take...and what do you!
by a similar analogy-David know about that?
Garnett and John
vention in England to-day. Collier among Animal Analogies
the moderns; Arisophanes a longi We have not her English equiva- while ago. There was Maeter lent. Saki might be the nearest. linck's "Life of the Bee," which so He also was a skilful mountainer startled Hollywood when they among nerve ranges; he, too, was found they had Jobsessed by the fascination of find-purchased
aloud for some soothing syrup, and
13, and if she had she wouldn't.'
became successful
By the time you have finished prising if she "After Such Pleasures" you will as a writer of sentimental tales. probably be feeling fairly hysteri-
[PASTORAL THEME IN NEW NOVEL Passing of Britain's Landed Gentry.
MÁNY EFFECTS' LOST Mrs. Ehel Boileau succeeds in ing the animal equivalent for hu-it. And, mightiest delighting thousands of readers, man beings. Her new novel is called "When Yellow Leaves" (Hotchinson, 78. the first and one of the best of Grahame's Mr. Toad, who sang of 6d.), and its theme is the passing Dorothy Parker's sketches, has to himself in so high a strain, re-
A
Bim
'unwittingly! version of
and sweet- Fest, the "Wind in the Wil-
The young husband in "Horsie," lows" chronicle of Toad, Kenneth
-
em'-'
GOETHE'S WORKS IN RUSSIAN. Seven Volume Edition Being Prepared.
Moscow, Apr. 7.
A new seven volume edition of
RADCLYFFE HALL'S SHORT TALES of the landed gentry. More than dine every night with his cherish-minding us that there is a little bit Goethe's works is being prepared
that-the passing of the meaningled, fragile young wife's confine-of Toad in us ail:
" "The clever men at Oxford, and utility of the landed gentry. ment nurse. She looks like
Know all that there to knowed;"
women.
to
Here are three novels written by turn which the bulls and horses noWe're hanging on to a system horse, she neighs and whinnics But the background says Michael, scion of the ancient like a horse, she tosses her head First of all, "Matador" doubt loved. (Gollancz, 8s.), by Miss Marguerite of the book is brutal; Pepe is both Vanes, "that's outlasted all its like a horse, and rest it, as it were, the on the paddock rail. The resem- Steen meaning and usefulness Steen, whose long novels follow so not and brute; and if Miss
blance grows on him. He cannot closely on one another's heels that has made old Jose a more sympathe-State."
That's a big theme and an im alarm at the author's industry must tie character than his son, that is be any reviewer's first feeling. only because the sorrows are on himportant one, but Mrs. Boileau does not develop her story in relation Her versatility next claims a tri-that age brings to most people, novel
hute. The English countryside and
Book Of Five Stories
Lelier To Publisher. Jane, however; went on
to the theme or get her effects out of it. Old Sir Anthony, hanging writing, keeping her manuscript
its people were the matter of "Stal- Miss Radcyffe Hall's new book, visitors from the prying eyes of
Jon" masterpiece which, one "Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself" (Heine-pathetically on to the acres which by covering it with embroidery.
sented as a weaking from first to "Mansfield Park" appeared in 1814 fears, Miss Steen will not surpass mann, 78. Gd.), contains five stories, he can no longer afford, is pre- if she continues to hurry as she is like best the only one in which a
and "Emma" in 1816, with a de- duing. Then came "Spider," set in normal experience is presented. last, and his son Eric is just a
-dication
silly, gambling hobbledchoy. Regent to the Prince
+ German The disaster, which would have (George IV.), who professed to be Brittany, or so we were told, though That is the story of an admirer of Jane Austen's work. really it was a land of pure fantasy, woman. living in England, whose been moving and convincing If it But its people were real enough-as dutifully goes to chapel with him, had arisen out of the relentless In a letter to her publisher Jane sophisticated as those in "Stallion" mends his socks and cooks his food.
pressure falling on the estates, An accident reunites mother and wrote: "You will be pleased to were unspoiled.
comes through two acts of sheer hear that I have received. the Now Miss Steen takes us to Spain sons, and Leah's husband, showing folly: through old Sir Anthony Prince's thanks for the handsoine to contemporary, post-revolution an unlocked-for intelligence, leaves gambling away his fortune on the copy I sent him of 'Emma.' What Spain. In Granada lives her re. them.
the work, yours seems to have tired bull-fighter with his three sons.. That the mother who worshipped ever he may think of my share of lie had been a great man in his day, success should have quarrelled with been quite right."
2
Stock Exchange while pathetical- by mumbling over Eric who is do- ing the same thing on the race- this Don Jose Diaz Marquez, and the the boys because they were success- course. One loses patience as this The letter which contained this vesence of the story is his desire to ful seems to me improbable, and her sorry pair shakes down the yel- out of low leaves a good deal faster than phrase was sold in 1930 in a Lan- see his fame perpetuated through marriage is completely
character. The beat thing in the they need to fall. dan auction
a the prowess of one of his sons. room for £1,000,
book is the authentic "feel" of its If you enn forget that the au- striking commentary on the fact Miguel would not do; he was
thor Is not dealing with the task that Jane received less than £700 hunch-back and he was being train-music-bail back-ground.
The little tale goes deeper than she set herself, but evading itį Juan, ined for the Church.
poet, for the four novels published her lifetime.
dreamer, did not seem a likely can- any of the other excursions into right and left, you may get enjoy. Take, for example, the ment out of her brisk story. The didate. The rites of the bull-ring unreality. Jane Austen died at Winchester on July 18, 1817.. A window was made him vomit. Pepe was the ob-tale of Henry Dobbs, slum boy, who slipping of the ancestral acres in- of theatrical placed in the cathedral to her mevious choice "Pepe, the counter-was born with a passionate love for to the grasp of an American built
part of himself, at the same age:beautiful things. He became fore- on the broad lines coarse, lewd, lustful, blind to all man in a firm which specialised in melodrama, his frustration by a
the removal of objects of art, and cute little American actress, ave his own interests."
needs one day, overcome hy the desire to Sir Anthony's suicide when A bull-fighter, it seems, much money to maintain his pres-possess for himself a thing of minutes' waiting, would have told lige. A rich marriage had been the beauty, he stole an Ivory statuette him that all was well; these things worth thousands of pounds. He work up to a fine stage curtain. making of Don Jose, and for Pepe was sentenced to four years impri-Looking at him lying there, the the obvious wife seemed to be Pilar, sonment, and thought it worth actress said: "If he bad only
mory.
OLD THEME FOR NEW NOVEL.
Expert Handling By Hugh Clevely.
heiress of a neighbour reputed wealthy. Pilar was visionary: trances claimed her at times, and for the love of God she lacerated her bosom with thorns.
with
while.
old
five
waited-fen't that just like Life?"
I don't believe it. Henry, was in One can imagine the first fivel position to save a few pounds, and words wrung from many lips, but
In a position to know that for a few one can't imagine anyone, in those) Mr. Hunt Carries On. By Hugh
Pounds he could buy a charming bit circumstances, speaking the last Clevely. (Hutchinson, 78, éd.) Pope would have put up Mr. Clevely can tell a good tale, these things if the money had been of Copenhagen porcelain or Lancas-five. They are pure Drury Lane.,
and it matters not to him that it
trian lapin. That would have served
con-
there. It wasn't; and the poignant his turn as well as the ivory, they lived-in atmosphere of slow part of the book is the struggle in The stories are all competently Sunday travelling, dingy lodgings, in the oldest tale in the world. The Don Jose'n still lustful soul when done, but each of them, except cheap cosmetics, draughty music- missing heiress with a birthmark which shall inevitably establish having taken Pilar into his house-Fraulein Schwartz," puts some balls, quarrelling, generous, rather
Lawdry "pros"--is excellently her identity; unscrupulous vil-old as a "daughter," he watches the strain on bellef.
A Simple Theme
¡veyed. lains seeking to didle her out of gentle Juan's growing love for her;
"Mother of Fivo" -(Jarrolds, ¡70. The scheme of the book is simple. her birthright; plain common- and knows that ho wants her him-
self. Benaical Englishmen, who face the
Gd.) Se by Henrietta Leslie, who Leah had written the "number" for The eldest son cut the evil-doora and see that Justice at: We are given a tragic but serene wrote that good book, "Mrs. Fis-the Five. Just triumphs, with marriage-bells conclusion. Pepe killed in the ring, cher's War." The mother of five to "number" to pieces, tightened it up, accompaniment: that is the stuff Miguel turned atheist and revolu- Leah Pett, trapeze artist, a woman made it a great success, Leah was which it was permissible in the tionary, Juan fled with Miguel, the of no volatile a temperament, that furious that her work had been in- past to give 'em, is permissible to old man is left with Pilar for the each of the five had ́ ́a': different terfered with, and in a huff cleared give 'em now, and will doubtlake sole prop of his gentle decadence, father, and only one of the fathers off to America
be the tommodity to administer Miss. Bleen, appears to use all the was Leah's husband, NanoS Then we follow the not very pres. for many years to come, Mr. correct technical words in describing The five, professionally The Five perous fortunes of the Five. Leah Clovely is an expert dispenser of the affairs of the bull-ring. Some Fetts, gave a musical turn on the comes back from America, marries this most honourable prescription. of them have a suave, courteous "halis" and the atmosphere in which a dowdy business man.
But they none of them know
half as much
As intelligent Mr. Toad!
by the Moscow Publishing House or Literature for which all works be cf Goethe were translated anew.
Each volume furthermore con one{tains critical notes and commenta by the Soviet Russian writer and historian, Professer Rossanov,
+
It's the finer
Flavour!"
Capstan
for quality!