LITERARY NOTE
AS SEEN IN REAL LIFE
Charming Minature By Maurice Baring
INTENSELY HUMAN DRAMA
Complexity is much easier to ex- plain than simplicity because-In practice-implicity does not need explaining. The art of Mr. Maurice Baring presents the critic with a like difficulty. It is almost
DS
unanalysable as a taste; it just is,
THE CHINA MAIL, MONDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1934
+
Behind The Scenes In PROBING PATIENTS
A Publisher's Firm
Pride In This Production Always Considered
Monentary Best-Sellers
An unusual little book is "Of point of view, was "an
CXXV. Books," failure.” and it is good; and those who find the Making of
MINDS
Wealth Of Advice
For Doctors
"NATIONS ARE LACKING"
The Doctor and his Patients. Byl
Albert Krecke. Translated by Margaret M. Groen. (Kegan Paul. 108, 6d.).
The lay reader has not a little to gain from the wealth of advice offered here by an experienced Ger- abjectiman doctor to his younger col-]
leagues, for it is the right relation- Howe ship of doctor and patient that Dr. Krecke seeks above all to establish.
There must be understanding on
it so are unarguably sure about it, published by Gerald Howe. It is It is a good point in Mr.
Take, for example, Mr. Baring's described as a publisher's biblio-that he is critical of his own pro new short novel, "The Lonely Ladygraphy, but it is not of an ordinary ductions; of course,
this is after
of Dulwich." It is, if one had to kind, and it should not be taken the event and does not set the tune the one part and confidence on the describe it, a story atout a beauti-simply as an advertisement. Mr. on the blurb. The occasional sup other if treatment is to be success- ful girl, hull American, half Anglo-Howe, it appears, has published 125 per-party suggests that social ful; and understanding of the Irish, who married a wealthy Eng. books, and he prooeeds to give some amenities may pave the way for patient's mind is often hard to come lish banker'cirea 1870, went to live acccunt of their inception, their more austere communion. And by. How, for instance, asks Dr. fate. here is a publisher who is capable Krecke, does the patient picture the with him in Paris, nearly ran away characteristics, and their
old and lonely lady.
Taking his mind off his political troubles for the moment, Chan- cellor and Reich Leader Adolph Hitler, smiles as he receives a floral tribute from three young frauleins in Haraburg. The photograph was made a Herr Hitler visited Hamburg to appeal to the people to turn out for the plebiscite which gave him an overwhelming majority.
with a young French poet who They are mainly in the past tense of being sorry for an author, nature and origin of his malady? was separated from her husband and they go far to fortify the sug We can hardly approve; pity is a What idea has he of the anatom- afterwards married someone else, gestion that much of a publisher's dangerous quality. We are begin-cal changes taking place in his eventually, and then lived for many work is not concerned with imme-ning to learn something about these body, and what effect have these publishers. Mr. Stanley Unwin told anatomical images on his fears and years in a cottage in Dulwich, anidiate profits.
This particular publisher. itjus a good deal, and Mr. Swinnerton hopes? An attempt to explain his Sueli a summary conveys far too should be stated, is revealed as has contributed to the tale from his case to him with any scientific ac little; but It might also, in another sort of duality. There is a Mr.experiences. The present little curacy will probably fall of its Gerald Bullet and a Mr. Ganfield volume may help towards Mr. object, yet some explanation there way, convey too much, writes James Hilton in the Daily Telegraph. It Howe, and together they constitute Unwin's ideal of wider and better must be, in this age of popular might suggest, to anyone who die Gerald Howe. To Mr. Bullett is as recognition of the work done by selence, If the patient is to
signed "the delicate art of handling publishers; it does, at least, give a satisfied that he is being properly A GREAT ADMIRER not know the work of Mr. flaring,
the authors." Perhaps he is one of suggestion of happy relations be-treated. One of those "intensely human,
those who have some compunction tween these who in their different "Notions are lacking." says the OF CONRAD dramus" to which novel-readers aro 80.drearily accustomed. Actually, In doing their handling with the ways do something to make a better author, "but words are everywhere." and in a very true sense. Mr.boot, writes Allan Monkhouse in the world of it.
Tired Of Standard Novel
are
Baring's atorics human dramas. dramas in which there is no over.
aro
"EG
Manhenter Guardian. One of his intensely But they function is to persuade the authors make such modifications in scoring of effects, and in which the their MSS. or proofs as a publisher intensity, as so often in real life. is his wisdom might think deair-
able."
A dangerous fellow, this.
liable to be missed by the undis- cerning.
WELL-BALANCED STORY
Mr. Howe can hardly be brutal to Character-Drawing Skill
Of Naomi Jacob
Ithose of his own choice. but his Frustration Of Human Desire frankness is not always a contribu The writing. ton, is unadorned tion to complacency. and avolds appeals to the seeker.
An Adventure
after emphatic phrases or pictures que exaggerations. Events happen,
the lonely lady, decldes at eracial moment that she
paraded in the words.
one
desire.
cannot
He tells us about his own begin-
CHANGE OF THEME
he
LORD OXFORD'S LETTERS
Second Series Published
BURNING FORGED FIRST EDITIONS Search For 2,000 Buyers To Refund Money
FRAUD IN BRITAIN AND U.S.
Booksellers are to-day burning books for which hundreds of pounds were paid a few years ago.
They are catalogued first editions of the Brownings, Wordsworth, [Swinburne, and other famous au- ? thors, which have been declared by Mr. John Carter and Mr. Graham Pollard-two young bibliographers
to be forgeries.
Consternation has been caused both in Britain and the United States by the assertion, because the books are not only in the possession of many private collectors, but also in honoured places in. public libraries and museums.
Offer To Repay
A number of booksellers whe bought the volumes in good faith at auctions are now paying out hundreds of pounds to customers to whom they resold them.
One West End bookseller with a large British and American clientele said to the News Chronicle:-
"I have written to all my clients who are In possession of these volumes offering to repay the full purchase price upon their return.
"As the volumes come back I am burning them."
The market value of most of the
Certain words, such as "adhesions,"
books average about £6 but books help to build up the picture the
sellers are having to repay between patient demands, even if used in a
$100 and £200 a time for copies of & Rense that is scientifically inexact.
The second series of Lord Ox-Browning's "Sonnets from "The more adhesions the better Bonedict Theilen is an enthusian-ford's "Letters to a Friend" comes
the Portuguese." with some people," he tells us in a
tie adinirer of Conrad and holds.
In all there are over 2,000 books comic aside, of which there are (against general opinion) that his from Geoffrey Bles. It covers the to be collected to prevent any fur- many in these very human pages. women are among the very greatest. years from 1922 to 1928. Just be-ther complications in the world of
He considers that the famous Pol-fore Lord Oxford's death. The doctor must seek to penetrate ish-cum-British author is to prose the first series, the second has been
Like biblography. his patient's mind. He must re-what Beethovah is to music. member the important part, it plays
THE 'OXFORD BOOK OF
17TH CENTURY VERSE
The question whether the book- sellers themselves can claim any recompense, or whether any legal action can be takon, la to be con- sidered at the meeting of the Antique Book Society.
"PRINCE OF ANTHOLOGISTS" Professor Grierson is one of the harlest; and no of the most dis-known for his acholarly work on Mr. E. V. Lugns is perhaps best Linguished, workers among professors Lamb-but when the degree of LI. of English literature, A very not-D. was granted him at St. Andrewa able book for this month will be in 1922, the Public Orator described The Oxford Book of Seventeenth him as "the Prince of Authologists.' Both Mr. Noel Coward's autobiosity Press will add to the famous Opon Road," now in its 35th year Century Verse," which the Univer- His most famous anthology, "The
NOEL COWARD'S BOOKS
"Oxford Bucks." The new book has of life and its 41 edition, is volume been edited by Mr. Herbert Grier- No. 1, in a new half-crown series en- son and Mr. Geoffrey Bullough. titled "The Fountain Library."
He declares that he wrote his own edited by Mr. Desmond McCarthy. both in sickness and recovery, and novel, "Deep Streets," been use he treat it with humanity and im-was tired of the standard one-main- After her justly admired Jewish lagination, picturing his own feel-oharacter novel:" because he befie- again as in real life, without-labels inge, almost creating the illusion trology Miss Naomi Jacob has shift-lings in like circumstances and add-ves with Voltaire that "Chance is tied to them; when, for instance, that it is easy to become a publish-ed her ground considerably. It is ing to them the fear of the unknown the great ruler of all;" and because
You Just take an office and a far cry to the county of the broad and the dimly apprehended. the er:
mention that you are there. Then acres, and there is almost literally a
o wanted to write about New York, Dr. Krecke goes on leave her husband, emotion is im-MSS. flow in, many of them being world of difference between
to demons-the maddest, ugliest, and most plicit in the situation rather than works of genius. You send the best Gollantzes and the Howes: but the pain, mental and physical, may be
the trate, from long experience, how beautiful city in the world." of these to the printer, establish author of "The Londed Stick" has spared the alck and recommends The whole technique, indeed, is selling agencies, pack. distribute effected the passage with the utmost extensive visual examination, both of omission and reticence and rapidly make a fortune. There confidence and shows herself equally as an invaluable form of diagnosis transmitting by its very quietnessre some other little matters to at home in either world.
in inself and to avoid giving un- a sense of time, inevitability, and attend to, but a moderate intellig There is only one feature that necessary the constant frustrations of human ence and average industry should is common to the two works--Miss deprecates the publicity given to the title, Play Parade, in com
pain by touching. He sue you through them. It is not Jacob is obviously more interested cancer in the effort to bring about the title, Parade," will come Admirers of Mr. Baring's longer surprising that publishers are in- in the characters than in their aur early diagnosis and treatment, lest from Heinemann. novels ('C" and "Cats's Cradle," creasing. A difficulty is that some roundings, writes G.L.-C. in the it should contribute, on the other especially) may perhaps hope for aff the best geniuses have made con Manchester Guardian,
A
The back hand, to tracts ahead. return to his more copious manner
ground is at all times quite ade neurosis." one of these days; but in the mean- Perhaps this does not correspond quate to the figures it is intended He is emphatically of the opinion time "The Lonely Lady of Dulwich" precisely with the experiences of to reveal she is too competent a that no patient suffering from an is a charming miniature, typical of Mr. Howe. The firm started well craftsman to make any mistake Incurable form of the disease should its author's perfectly proportioned with a guines book and an exquisite about that, but at the same time be told, nor anyone likely to reveal little dinner. One likes the way she has quite clearly no expectation, to him, lest what is left to him that a really modern publisher sets and possibly no desire, that this of life be hopelessly embittered. about it. The second of the firm's book should be hailed as a saga of Let the doctor risk his reputation books was two guineas-or, at least, the soil or an epic of the earth.. the special edition was. Of course,
for diagnosis, or at most safeguard Howesholm plays ita part in himself. by confiding the truth, to such arithmetical progression could the shaping of the lives of all who some unimpeachable reliable friend not be kept up, and the third fell come into contact with it, but Miss of the family. back to the familiar seven-and-six. Jacob, who excellent judgment, is But always there seems to have careful to allow it only a part, and been some pride in the production.we are spared the brooding, land- whether the subject were cricket or scapes, the lowering hills, the cockery, astronomy or religion. midden-smells, and the ubiquitous
Art.
SAMUEL SMILES'S LAST CHILD
Death Of Daughter Who Eloped
VICTORIAN LINK BROKEN
3
growing "cancer
G.B.S.'s Clarion Calls
Publishing is an adventure, and it squalor which seem inseparable ac-Collected Prefaces. By G. B. Shaw The last direct link with one of is made to be choice at a reason the modern becolić.
is a moral exercise when an effort cidents, if not logical essentials, of (Constable, 12s. 6d.) the most popular of Victorian writ.]] ers lus been severed by the death in
able price. It becomes a culture, a
Here, in one volume, are all the. Some Magnificent Characters Prefaces that Mr. Shaw has writ Newcastle-on-Tyne of Mrs. Isilian gallant experiment. Commerce gets Dryden within a week of her 80th a bad name, but it is another mat the marriage only just precedes the thirty years old. Nevertheless, Mr. It is true that on two occasions ten. Some of them are nearly birthday.
ter when the commercial venture is rth, but the hair-breadth which Shaw thinks they are all rather She was the last surviving child in terms of learning and good taste. divides propriety from impropriety ahead of of Samuel Smiles, the author of Possibly there is the danger that remains on the right side, and our them. Be that as it may, it.is "Self Help," who died in 1001. intrinsic values may become second-rustic morality is spared the usual grand value to get all these clarion "Self Help" was an enormouslyjary, but there is the satisfaction "of slander. There are successful work. Between 1850, its putting together
some magni- calls by our most clamant chanticler dite of publication, and 1912, some book."
the times than behind
a distinguished cent characters in the book-above for the price of a bottle of whisky. Conscience extends to print all, old Mary Ellen, her son's wife, 350,000 copies had been sold. ing and paper, and conscience may Jael, and, lo a lesser degree the lat "SCOTLAND IN TEN DAYS”
Rejected By First Poblishers. be a good investment. You Andrew
It was translated into nearly all Lang might have written a ballad ter's daughter, Parin..
It was a grave risk for Mins Scotland in Ten Daya, by J. J.
the languages in the world, includ-on "Beautiful Books Remaindered;" Jacob to introduce gipsles on to a Bell (Harrap, 6s.), offers the, holi- ing some of the Inlion tongues. the publisher knows too well what Yorkshire farm, for there la an age daymaker a superbly strenuous tour Yet, as has happened more than once it is to have "glowing notices butald enmity between those two lovers arranged with an ingenuity, that in the case of such works, it was re-minimum sales." He knows, too, of the land, the farmer and the leaves jected by the first publishers to the "momentary best-seller."
one breathless, and will, "how dead a horse is the best-seller harmonising them the author has breathless.
gipsy. But in the difficulty of probably leave those who make it
whom it was offered..
of the day before yesterday."
and
Alrs. Dryden married in romantic Giremstances. In her early twen
found fine stope for her abilities; Of one thing one is sum, which ties she met Frederick Elliot Dryden! "Religion A Winter” ` where their characteristics.must reis that nobody could hope to see then a mate in the merchant service. Mr. Howe (granting that there mala distinct, as in Jasper and Jael, more of a country in ten days than Her father was against the marriage, is such a person once very nearly she has kept them so with a skilful Mr. Bell has made feasible but the young couple took matters secured a best-seller, but the "world- hand, and she has blended them with into their own hands and cloped shaking author" was snatched from equal skill in the character of their
It was some time before Dr. Smiles his grasp by another publisher. He daughter, Paris. The result is a forgave them.
SHAW'S PREFACES
After only a comparatively shot with the publication of a broadcast distinction and full of interest, no Shaw are published by Constable, dld have a very respectable success beautifully balanced story, full of All the "Prefaces of Bernard period of married life her husband, symposium on science and religion, less in the minor characters than The Frefaces will be uniform with who had obtained his captain's cer and he even demonstrated that in the major, a virtue fot always the omnibus of Shaw's Plays. tificate, was lost at sen when thej,
peared during a gale,
popular religion may be a winner. apparent even in the greatest
vessels he was commanding disap But the press missed the opportun-novels.
With the help of her father Mrsity to make a fuss over Maria) Dryden brought up her four children. Marten and Sweeny Todd: perhaps
Three of them were with her during these have run their course as jokes › MASON'S SHORT. STORIES her last illness, but one daughter is and may next he revived as psy- in Persia..
chological studies:
Mr. A. EW. Mason, who is not Naturally the young publisher prolific writer of short stories, has James Bridio is writing the life of will not despise the opportunes hut a new volume
them appearing Berunrd Shaw, for a book to conges handbook on a homing election, with Hodder and Stoughton under on Great Contempora
written from a broadly Labourthe titles leusmas.
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