2. Cuttings
box 38/4
ANDRE MAUROIS
The story of M. Maurois is that of a
philosophic young intellectual, almost
sacrificed to the gods of modern busi¬
ness, but fortunately for himself and
for us, reicased by the Great War. His
family textile mills claimed him when
he was little more than a boy, but when
che war camc his long enthusiasm for
life and letters on the other side of ehe
Channel made of him an idcal liasion
oflicer, he became attached to G. H. O.
and, curiously, for the first time found
leisure to writc—which he did charm
ingly and good naturedly, largely about
English officers. It was wich the pub¬
lication of that delightful novelized
biography of Shellcy—driel—that his
talent first became widely rccognized in
England and America, and ehen his
finc, understanding biography, Dirracl:
—put the scal upon his repuration as a
most discerning, andentertaining writer.
THOMAS MANN
Thomas Mann is as yet, we fecl, too
little known in this country. Hc is
generally accepted, we belicce, as the
foremost living novelist in Germany.
Twenty-eight years ago he wrotc a
novel, Bachenbrookr, a strikingly mature
work for à young writer—he was ihen
but twenty-six—that went to hifty
editions in a decade; and a few years
ago (in so great regard is he held)
there was a nation-wide celebration in
Germany of his fifticch birchday. Te
Magie Manntarn is his latest book to be
translated and publisbed in this country,
a fruly impressive novel, conccived on
a Balzacian scale, which has elicited
the warmest enthusiasm among critics
and cognoscenri, particularly those who
are philosophically inclined.
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