31.
Fraeulein Else
box 5/3
THE OBSER
New N
REPRINTS, TRANSLA¬
TIONS, NOVELTIES.
" Elsie and the Child.“ By Arnold Bennett.
Drawings by E. Moknight Kauffer. (Cassell
62 28.)
Early Sorrow.“ By Thomas Mann. Trans¬
lated by H. T. Lowe-Porter. (Secker. 6s.)
Fräulein Else.“
By Arthur Schnitzler.
Translated by F. H. Lyon and Erio Sutton.
Illustrated by Donia Nachsen. (Constable
318. 6d.)
Abyss.“ By Leonid Andreyev. Translated
by John Cournos.
With Engravings by Ivan
ebedeff. (The Golden Cockerel Press. 128. 6d.)
Fables.“ By T. F. Powys. With four designs
by Gilbert Spender. (Chatto and Windus. 25s.)
The Hill of Cloves: A Tract on True Love.
With a Digression upon an Invention of the
Devil.“ By Romer Wiison. (Heinemann. 78. 6d.)
Fame.“ By May Sinolair.“ A Ghost in the
Isie of Wisht.“ By Shane Leslie.“ The Shout.
By Robert Graves. (Nos. 13, 15, and 16 of the
Woburn Books.) (Mathews and Marrot. 68.
each.
The Smiling Fabes.“
0 5. —
By Brinsley Mac
Namara.“ Hobohemians.“ By Philip Owen.
The Ladder.“ By Vernon Knowies.
* Love
Dne Another.“ By Edgell Rickword. (Mandrake
Booklets.) (The Mandrake Press. 33. 6d. each.
The King Waits.“ By Clemence Dane
* Illusion: 1915.“ By H. M. Tomlinson. (Heine¬
mann. 18. each.)
(BY GERALD GOULb.)
Mr. Bennett knows, better than any¬
body else, how many towns make five;
but he can also interpret London to
Londoners. His Elsie andithe Childe¬
is probably the best of bis-London
stories; for his touch is as light and
delicate with children as it is firm with
business men; and Elsie belongs to the
small band of contemporary characters
in fiction who merit the term“ heroic.
nthat simple, ungainly person, strug¬
ling so hard to live up to the
exacting social standards imposed upon
servants, to cope with a neurotic hus¬
band, and to find room in her little world
for the lavish greatness of her power
to love, there shines the light immortal.
cannot help giving one quotation:
There Miss Eva sat, far more elegant
and stylish than either of her
parents,
resh, exquisite in contours, sensitive,
proud, defenceless, set apart, so voung in
er twelve years, childlike, childlike, child¬
like—broken!
The adults were roughened
and stained by the world, experience,
ears; Miss Eva had the divinity of inno¬
cence, and rather than that she should
ose a particle of it, the whole world ough
tobe destroyed.
That quotation, however, is really self¬
indulgence: it is so lovely that I like
tobe reminded of it. My proper busi¬
ness here is to criticise, not so much
the story itself (with which in any case
most of my readers will be familiar),
as the sumptuousness of this new and
The book is large in
special edition.
age and type, and runs to 86 pages:
the typography is nothing short of beau
tiful: the paper is a delight: an
there are many characteristic and stri
ing illustrations in colour by M
Kauffer.
Altogether,
TI
wvorthy setting of a noble thing.
edition is limited to 750; there are 10
specially bound copies, signed by autho
and artist, at five guincas.
I turn next to“ Early Sorrow,“' be¬
ause of a similarity of theme. (In its
own much more modest way, I should
add, this little book also is very well pro¬
4 1.
N
D
h
#
1
#11
SUS
44:
11
1
tha
in¬
ad
C0
Dr
pL
ke
th
InC
by
an
in
ne
n
al
1
is
re.
I.
V
Guted.
Tile puslisniers Speek
a short novel, or long short story.
One appreciates their difficulty, There
is in fact no word or phrase in our lan
guage exactly to describe this form
of art. Even“ story,“ though true and
lecessary, gives a wrong impression
he actual narrative in
* Early Sor
row'' is slight: what is valuable, wha
is memorable, is the understanding re
vealed. There is a party, mixed
ofl
grown-ups and children: one of the
children is unhappy at being parted
from one of the grown-ups: she has t0
be comforted. That is really all,
Tet
on its modest scale the sketch is a mas¬
erpiece. It could not have been writter
xcept by a man of genius. It catches,
in one brief picture of transitory unrea¬
sonable grief, the sense of the world¬
grief which does not pass, and for which
there are so many reasons.
# *
With" Fräulein Else“’ we turn from
the sphere of simple sorrow to that of
morbid desire and the violations of vir
ginal reserve.“ The chariest maid is
prodigal enough
and pool
77
Else, chary to the point of hysteria, was
Called upon to be more prodigal than
tliat. We are still dealing with genius
hut 1 think I said when I reviewed this
vork in a less grand edition, and any¬
way 1 still think, that it is far from
ranking with its author’s best.
The
decorations are elaborate and effective,
and the faintly-coloured illustrations
well catch the note of fever and fear.
*
A little book (only 32 pages, here)
whose high price is justified by the ex¬
ellence of the production, is“ Abyss,'
by Andreyev. Judged as an object to
handle, it would make a good Christ¬
mas present: judged as an object to
read, it would clash rather surprisingl
vith what the recipient might be ex
pected to consider the Christmas spirit.
t is a hideous story—of physical rape
and spiritual madness.
To call i
powerful'' is miserably to understaie:
it has a gloomy and overmastering
force which leaves the brain of the
reader with the sensation of scar and
stain
N *
The“ Fables' of Mr Powys are
issued in a limited signed first edition.
Again, the production can be praised
wvithout reserve. Nor is there this time
any question of a small bulk recom¬
Diended by a fine dress. There is plenty
5f matter—perhaps almost, considering
the manner, too much! For ihe fable
is a delicate and brittle form: handlec
wvith the least degree of clumsiness,
overburdened with detail, it beginsto
rack. Mr. Powys, whose command 0
strong and nervous prose is as conspieu
us as ever, partly solves and partly
evades this difficulty by making some
of his apologues less fabulous than
others. Some, indeed, like“ The Spitt
toon and the Slate,“ approximate to the
ordinary Powys story at its most
arshly realistic: while in others, such
as“ The Ass and the Rabbit, the moral
(I suppose a fable should have a moral)
s at least as obvious as any one could
wish.
The volume is one which
admirers of Mr. Powys’s highly indi¬
vidual talent will wish to possess.
*#*
In the main portion of“ The Hill of
Cloves, Miss Romer Wilson fully 'lives
upto her reputation as a writer of spon¬
aneous and lyrical prose. It must be
dmitted that her sub-title makes an
admission: and the admission itself, it
I mav so express myself, must also be
admitted. The part of the story—or
rhapsody, or what you will—which
Fraeulein Else
box 5/3
THE OBSER
New N
REPRINTS, TRANSLA¬
TIONS, NOVELTIES.
" Elsie and the Child.“ By Arnold Bennett.
Drawings by E. Moknight Kauffer. (Cassell
62 28.)
Early Sorrow.“ By Thomas Mann. Trans¬
lated by H. T. Lowe-Porter. (Secker. 6s.)
Fräulein Else.“
By Arthur Schnitzler.
Translated by F. H. Lyon and Erio Sutton.
Illustrated by Donia Nachsen. (Constable
318. 6d.)
Abyss.“ By Leonid Andreyev. Translated
by John Cournos.
With Engravings by Ivan
ebedeff. (The Golden Cockerel Press. 128. 6d.)
Fables.“ By T. F. Powys. With four designs
by Gilbert Spender. (Chatto and Windus. 25s.)
The Hill of Cloves: A Tract on True Love.
With a Digression upon an Invention of the
Devil.“ By Romer Wiison. (Heinemann. 78. 6d.)
Fame.“ By May Sinolair.“ A Ghost in the
Isie of Wisht.“ By Shane Leslie.“ The Shout.
By Robert Graves. (Nos. 13, 15, and 16 of the
Woburn Books.) (Mathews and Marrot. 68.
each.
The Smiling Fabes.“
0 5. —
By Brinsley Mac
Namara.“ Hobohemians.“ By Philip Owen.
The Ladder.“ By Vernon Knowies.
* Love
Dne Another.“ By Edgell Rickword. (Mandrake
Booklets.) (The Mandrake Press. 33. 6d. each.
The King Waits.“ By Clemence Dane
* Illusion: 1915.“ By H. M. Tomlinson. (Heine¬
mann. 18. each.)
(BY GERALD GOULb.)
Mr. Bennett knows, better than any¬
body else, how many towns make five;
but he can also interpret London to
Londoners. His Elsie andithe Childe¬
is probably the best of bis-London
stories; for his touch is as light and
delicate with children as it is firm with
business men; and Elsie belongs to the
small band of contemporary characters
in fiction who merit the term“ heroic.
nthat simple, ungainly person, strug¬
ling so hard to live up to the
exacting social standards imposed upon
servants, to cope with a neurotic hus¬
band, and to find room in her little world
for the lavish greatness of her power
to love, there shines the light immortal.
cannot help giving one quotation:
There Miss Eva sat, far more elegant
and stylish than either of her
parents,
resh, exquisite in contours, sensitive,
proud, defenceless, set apart, so voung in
er twelve years, childlike, childlike, child¬
like—broken!
The adults were roughened
and stained by the world, experience,
ears; Miss Eva had the divinity of inno¬
cence, and rather than that she should
ose a particle of it, the whole world ough
tobe destroyed.
That quotation, however, is really self¬
indulgence: it is so lovely that I like
tobe reminded of it. My proper busi¬
ness here is to criticise, not so much
the story itself (with which in any case
most of my readers will be familiar),
as the sumptuousness of this new and
The book is large in
special edition.
age and type, and runs to 86 pages:
the typography is nothing short of beau
tiful: the paper is a delight: an
there are many characteristic and stri
ing illustrations in colour by M
Kauffer.
Altogether,
TI
wvorthy setting of a noble thing.
edition is limited to 750; there are 10
specially bound copies, signed by autho
and artist, at five guincas.
I turn next to“ Early Sorrow,“' be¬
ause of a similarity of theme. (In its
own much more modest way, I should
add, this little book also is very well pro¬
4 1.
N
D
h
#
1
#11
SUS
44:
11
1
tha
in¬
ad
C0
Dr
pL
ke
th
InC
by
an
in
ne
n
al
1
is
re.
I.
V
Guted.
Tile puslisniers Speek
a short novel, or long short story.
One appreciates their difficulty, There
is in fact no word or phrase in our lan
guage exactly to describe this form
of art. Even“ story,“ though true and
lecessary, gives a wrong impression
he actual narrative in
* Early Sor
row'' is slight: what is valuable, wha
is memorable, is the understanding re
vealed. There is a party, mixed
ofl
grown-ups and children: one of the
children is unhappy at being parted
from one of the grown-ups: she has t0
be comforted. That is really all,
Tet
on its modest scale the sketch is a mas¬
erpiece. It could not have been writter
xcept by a man of genius. It catches,
in one brief picture of transitory unrea¬
sonable grief, the sense of the world¬
grief which does not pass, and for which
there are so many reasons.
# *
With" Fräulein Else“’ we turn from
the sphere of simple sorrow to that of
morbid desire and the violations of vir
ginal reserve.“ The chariest maid is
prodigal enough
and pool
77
Else, chary to the point of hysteria, was
Called upon to be more prodigal than
tliat. We are still dealing with genius
hut 1 think I said when I reviewed this
vork in a less grand edition, and any¬
way 1 still think, that it is far from
ranking with its author’s best.
The
decorations are elaborate and effective,
and the faintly-coloured illustrations
well catch the note of fever and fear.
*
A little book (only 32 pages, here)
whose high price is justified by the ex¬
ellence of the production, is“ Abyss,'
by Andreyev. Judged as an object to
handle, it would make a good Christ¬
mas present: judged as an object to
read, it would clash rather surprisingl
vith what the recipient might be ex
pected to consider the Christmas spirit.
t is a hideous story—of physical rape
and spiritual madness.
To call i
powerful'' is miserably to understaie:
it has a gloomy and overmastering
force which leaves the brain of the
reader with the sensation of scar and
stain
N *
The“ Fables' of Mr Powys are
issued in a limited signed first edition.
Again, the production can be praised
wvithout reserve. Nor is there this time
any question of a small bulk recom¬
Diended by a fine dress. There is plenty
5f matter—perhaps almost, considering
the manner, too much! For ihe fable
is a delicate and brittle form: handlec
wvith the least degree of clumsiness,
overburdened with detail, it beginsto
rack. Mr. Powys, whose command 0
strong and nervous prose is as conspieu
us as ever, partly solves and partly
evades this difficulty by making some
of his apologues less fabulous than
others. Some, indeed, like“ The Spitt
toon and the Slate,“ approximate to the
ordinary Powys story at its most
arshly realistic: while in others, such
as“ The Ass and the Rabbit, the moral
(I suppose a fable should have a moral)
s at least as obvious as any one could
wish.
The volume is one which
admirers of Mr. Powys’s highly indi¬
vidual talent will wish to possess.
*#*
In the main portion of“ The Hill of
Cloves, Miss Romer Wilson fully 'lives
upto her reputation as a writer of spon¬
aneous and lyrical prose. It must be
dmitted that her sub-title makes an
admission: and the admission itself, it
I mav so express myself, must also be
admitted. The part of the story—or
rhapsody, or what you will—which